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THE IVORY SERIES 


Each, 16mo, gilt top, 75 cents 

AMOS JUDD. By J. A. Mitchell, Editor of " Life 1 ’ 

IA. A Love Story. By Q. [Arthur T. Quiller-Couch] 
THE SUICIDE CLUB. By Robert Louis Stevenson 
IRRALIE’S BUSHRANGER. By E. W. Hornung 
A MASTER SPIRIT. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 
MADAME DELPHINE. By George W. Cable 
ONE OF THE VISCONTI. By Eva Wilder Brodhead 
A BOOK OF MARTYRS. By Cornelia Atwood Pratt 
A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH. By E. W. Hornung 
THE MAN WHO WINS. By Robert Herrick 
AN INHERITANCE. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 

THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK. 
By Thomas Nelson Page 

LITERARY LOVE LETTERS AND OTHER STORIES. 
By Robert Herrick 

A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT. By Francis Lynde 
IN OLD NARRAGANSETT. By Alice Morse Earle 
SEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. By J. V. Hadley 
" IF I WERE A MAN.” By Harrison Robertson 
SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES. By Anna A. Rogera. 


Other volumes to be announced 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


SWEETHEARTS AND 
WIVES 


STORIES OF LIFE IN THE NAVY 



CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
NEW YORK 1899 


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TYt.M 8 *''' 



Copyright, 1899, by 
Charles Scribner’s Sons 

'TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


VV'-V2> ° 
VWMI-W/tl. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Sweethearts and Wives / 

Mutiny on the Flag-ship 2q 

The Commodore’ s Chair 61 

From Three to Six ; Dancing ... 87 

War and Peace 7/5 

Marjory and the Captain . . . . 129 

Amma-San /57 

Reconstruction Days 203 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 




SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


Mrs. Ennis was writing as usual on the 
bulging old atlas laid in her lap, the travel- 
ling-inkstand at her elbowon the low window- 
sill. She was entirely absorbed and curiously 
exhilarated as she rapidly filled, numbered, 
and tossed aside sheet after sheet of the thin- 
nest note-paper. 

All the thought, sentiment, and passion of 
her being found their outlet in her letters to 
her absent husband. More than all else, the 
pathos of her starved, unnatural existence 
was shown by the pages she wrote of homely 
details that strove to make real their mar- 
riage, to keep it from becoming to them 
both a sort of dream — an almost fierce de- 
termination to hold him close to her daily 
life, hers and the children’s. 

It was almost three years since she and her 
boy had stood on the beach at Fort Monroe, 
up near the soldiers’ cemetery, and watched 
the ship, “all hands up anchor,” swing 
round, and head for the Capes. Sometimes 
she had heard every two weeks, sometimes 


3 


4 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


the silence was unbroken for three dreary- 
months, during a long cruise to some remote 
island of the Southern Archipelago. Then 
again, while in dock at Mare Island, the 
letters came daily. The repairs once finished, 
he was again blotted from her life for weeks, 
and a cablegram in the papers, a mere line to 
say the Mohican had arrived at Valparaiso 
or Callao, with the added brief “all well,” 
was what she lived on till the long sea-letter, 
often a month old, came to gladden her heart 
once more. 

She was answering a letter that had come 
that morning unexpectedly, brought north 
by a tramp steamer. 

As she began to re-read it the third time 
in search of fresh stimulus, she suddenly 
started and raised her flushed face. A 
woman’s voice was singing, as it approached 
along the narrow hotel corridor, a series of 
soft trills ending in a chromatic run that had 
the effect of a low, sweet laugh. There was 
a pause, and then a sharp tattoo on the door- 
panel, and the voice rang to its accompani- 
ment : 

“ Un beau matin on voit la, 

Un beau vaisseau rapprocher, 

Et voila ce cher Pedro, 

Que la Vierge a protege ” 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


5 


Mrs. Ennis pounced upon the foreign- 
stamped envelope lying at her feet, piled 
helter-skelter into her lap the many loose 
sheets about her, and, throwing over all her 
long sewing-apron, cried: 

“ Come in, Alice ! ” 

The door was thrown wide, a voice an- 
nounced pompously, “ Miss Blithe,” and a 
tall, beautiful girl swept in with a burlesque 
grand air and courtesy. Then she exclaimed, 
naturally, laughing and running to Mrs. 
Ennis: 

“ I’m so insanely happy to-day, please 
don’t mind anything I do. Are you happy 
too, to-day ? ’ ’ She looked attentively at Mrs. 
Ennis, who nodded her head, returning the 
girl’s sharp scrutiny. Then they both looked 
hastily away. Mrs. Ennis caught up a little 
jacket, holding it away from her lest Alice 
should detect the rustle of the hidden letter, 
and both women talked at random about the 
best way to darn an obtuse-angled rent. 

“Mrs. Ennis,” began Miss Blithe, with a 
rising inflection. Then she took a deep 
breath, and began again with a falling inflec- 
tion : 

“Mrs. Ennis,” again a pause, and then 
she said, rapidly : 


6 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


“We ought to hear by the same mail, 
oughtn’t we, now that Archie has been trans- 
ferred to your husband’s ship? ” 

Mrs. Ennis looked up quickly. The girl’s 
head was on one side, critically admiring 
the polish of her pretty finger-nails, her 
hand extended. Mrs. Ennis went on with 
her sewing. 

“As a rule, yes; but you must learn, 
Alice, to make allowances at this distance. 
A mail might go off very suddenly, and Mr. 
Endicott might not hear the call ; be on 
some special duty, asleep after a watch, or 
ashore. You must remember the possibili- 
ties.” 

“ Yes ? How about Dr. Ennis in all this ? 
“ Doesn’t any of it hold good in your case?” 
Alice asked with dancing eyes. Mrs. Ennis 
laughed nervously. Presently Miss Blithe 
wandered to the window that looked out 
toward the college, across the tree-tops. 

“Oh, Mrs. Ennis! There goes Pres- 
ton again, on the end of the longest kind 
of a whip-lash! What shall we do with 
that ” 

Alice heard an exclamation behind her, 
and, turning quickly, found her friend 
standing amidst a great flutter of flying 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 7 

papers, her face full of distress. The young 
girl danced up to her and exclaimed : 

“Oh, how delicious ! You had it under 
your apron all the time — and look ! ” She 
dived into her pocket and pulled out a 
letter, waving it aloft as she waltzed around 
the room; and then the two women fell 
into each other’s arms, laughing, and Alice 
cried in a breath : 

“ Mine came an hour ago, and I was so 
afraid you hadn’t got one — the doctor 
might have been asleep, you know ; so I 
wouldn’t tell till I knew, and you had it all 
the time ! And we were both trying to be 
so deep and sly! Isn’t it lovely! Now 
let’s sit down and compare notes.” 

They gathered up the scattered sheets, 
and were once more on a natural and ap- 
parently perfectly frank footing ; but Mrs. 
Ennis said nothing of a paragraph in the 
doctor’s letter, near the end, which read : 
“ Endicott has suddenly gone to pieces. 
I can’t quite make it out — heart, I’m 
afraid. Our time is up, and orders for 
home have not yet come. Of course we’re 
all a good deal rattled, but it’s downright 
poison for him in his present state.” 

And when Alice read extracts of her 


8 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


letter to Mrs. Ennis, she, too, passed over 
a sentence with a gasp that made the other 
smile. It read: “Doctor Ennis told me 
there were two cases of yellow fever on 
this ship before I joined her, and she was 
in quarantine for weeks. He did not write 
his wife about it ; and you, sweetheart mine, 
are to say nothing to her, unless exagger- 
ated accounts get into the papers.” 

When the letters were tenderly folded 
and put away, Mrs. Ennis took up her 
work again, and Alice sat down on a stool 
at her feet, putting her elbows on her 
knees and resting her chin on the palms 
of her hands, watching the quiet, busy 
mother. 

“ I wish I could be more like you, Mrs. 
Ennis. I do get so utterly weary of the 
endless see-saw of my moods. You are so 
strong and brave, and, above all, sane.” 

“ Not always, Alice.” 

“ Well, then it’s all the more admirable, 
for no one ever sees the other side.” 

“ I had a temperament very like yours 
when I married the doctor, and I’ve been 
frozen into what you call sanity by the 
strain of this life of ours. He and I have 
been separated six years out of eleven. 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


9 


Of course nowadays that is unusual, but 
he is not a ‘ Coburger ; ’ we have no house 
in Washington, neither political nor so- 
cial influence. When George is ordered to 
sea, after three years’ shore duty, he goes. 
It’s the old story of the willing horse.” 

“ I should think you would have gone 
to San Francisco or Honolulu, as Mrs. 
French and Mrs. Atherton did. They 
saw their husbands twice, and had such 
lovely times, they wrote. Why didn’t 
you, Mrs. Ennis?” 

“ We have nothing but the doctor’s pay, 
Alice.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon ! I am so 
thoughtless,” cried the girl. 

“ Don’t distress yourself, my dear child. 
Fortunately, expense is the last thing you 
ever have to think about. I don’t in the 
least object to telling you my little affairs. 
He has to help his mother in a small way, 
and my father has his hands full. Then, 
because we can’t save anything, my hus- 
band carries a rather heavy — for us, of 
course — life insurance; and so we always 
sail very close to the wind.” And, to 
Alice’s bewilderment, Mrs. Ennis smiled 
as she went on : 


10 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


‘‘I can’t be too thankful I stumbled on 
this little nook — fresh air for Dorothy and 
a good school for Preston, and, between 
the college sessions, the hotel practically to 
ourselves. And then you followed me here, 
and behold my own opera on demand, like 
a queen ; your lovely rooms, and all the 
books, and you and your gowns, neither 
ever twice the same — a constant source of 
delight to me.” 

“ Oh, really ! ” and the girl’s white face 
flushed with pleasure, and her eager young 
eyes drooped shyly like a child’s. 

There was a short silence, and Mrs. 
Ennis sewed buttons on a pile of little 
shabby shoes, and Alice put a liquid black- 
ing on them, and laid them one by one on 
a newspaper to dry. Finally, the latter 
said : 

“ I was so glad to come, for Aunty is 
not very sympathetic about my engage- 
ment to Archie, you know. She doesn’t 
object to the Mr. Endicott, but the Lieu- 
tenant Endicott. She declares she doesn’t 
understand anything about the navy — 
never even heard of it before — and she’s 
much too old to begin ! ” 

“ I fancy Mrs. Percy thinks it a little 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES n 

vulgar, Alice ; many people do until — well, 
there’s a war scare.” 

“You won’t breathe it, will you, Mrs. 
Ennis, even to the doctor, if I tell you 
something ? ’ ’ Alice took a deep breath. 
“ I fairly hurled myself at Archie before 
he would propose ! ” 

“I fancy you,” said the other, with a 
laugh. 

“ Of course that sounds worse than it 
really was, because I knew perfectly well, 
ever since that winter in Washington, that 
he — liked me; and that it was only all 
this horrid money poor papa left that 
came between us — that and his stupid 
pride. You see, Aunty and I were at home 
in New York before the Mohican sailed, 
and he kept coming to the house, and 
sometimes he would only stay ten minutes 
and then rush off, saying he had a watch 
to stand, or was on a board of survey, or 
had promised to take somebody’s relief — 
whatever that means. He was so irritating, 
you can’t believe ! Well, one day those 
lawyers wrote me one of their tiresome 
legal letters that take four sheets to say 
one little simple thing that I can say in 
two sentences. I groped around in the 


12 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


slough of words awhile, and finally discov- 
ered I was being scolded for spending too 
much money to suit them — I had to give 
things to Aunty, you see, to make Archie’s 
path more smiling — and that gave me an 
idea. I closed the house and dragged her 
off to the boarding - house in Gramercy 
Park, where I met you. It was before 
Dorothy came, and my heart ached so 
for you and the poor doctor.” Alice, 
holding off a tiny wet shoe, stooped over 
and kissed the hand pulling the linen 
thread back and forth through a button- 
loop. 

The mother looked up and smiled. 

“ Aunty vowed she’d take me before the 
Commission in Lunacy. She couldn’t 
understand why I took to wearing old 
travelling-dresses, and packed away all my 
rings and furbelows. When Archie came 
I assumed an anxious, careworn look, and 
pretended to be nervous and absent- 
minded. I never worked so hard over 
anything in all my life. And he was so 
bewildered, poor boy ! Only a fortnight 
before the Mohican sailed, he came one 
afternoon and I was more pathetic than 
ever. I was simply determined ! Finally, 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


l 3 


he burst out with : ‘ Miss Blithe, what is it ? 
I can’t stand this sort of thing any 
longer. Won’t you tell me?’ And, Mrs. 
Ennis, what do you think I said? I an- 
swered in a husky sort of way — I’d been 
practising for a month — ‘ Money ! ’ And 
then — well — there was a lovely scene. 
Don’t you like scenes? ” 

“ My dear, I’m a woman ! ” 

“ Then what do you suppose I did ? ” 

“ You asked him to give you till to- 
morrow, and so forth, and so forth.” 

“ Exactly ! Wasn’t it too dreadful ? ” 
“Oh! we all do it. We suggest, as it 
were, and then retreat. You must never 
quote me as saying so, but I shouldn’t like 
to tell what I think would become of the 
question of matrimony if we didn’t.” 

The children dashed in, and Alice ran 
away, singing as she went : 

“ Ecoutez, Sainte Marie, 

Je donnerai mon beau collier, 

Si vous ferez rapporter, 

Revenir mon cher Pedro.” 

Several weeks later, one evening after 
the children had gone to sleep, Mrs. En- 
nis sat at the table covered with a temple- 


14 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


cloth, absorbed in the worship of the 
god called Daikoku in the land whence 
came the glittering brocade. 

There should have been a thread of in- 
cense burning and the tinkle of a bell to 
rouse the ever-drowsy god of wealth ; but 
the supplicant had much the same attitude 
and expression here as there, of hunger 
and weariness, as she sat with clasped 
hands and head bowed over several little 
piles of postal receipts from the Navy 
Mutual Aid Association. There had been 
two extra assessments that month, and 
that was a financial tragedy in her life. A 
feminine panic had seized upon her ; she 
must go over it all once more. It meant 
so much just then. She had planned so 
closely, and had hoped to meet her hus- 
band dressed as he liked to see her, all in 
brown from head to foot — as if he really 
cared ; but it would have been one of 
those ultra-happinesses that all her life 
long had been denied her. 

There was a soft tap at the door, and 
Alice’s maid handed her a note, a mere 
line : 

“ Please come down and be audience. 
Aunty will not keep awake, and I must 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 15 

sing to-night or die ! Maggie will stay 
with the children.” 

So she went, and found Alice in her 
maddest mood and Mrs. Percy gone to 
bed in her grumpiest. 

Alice had felt like making a toilet that 
evening, and wore a beautiful gown of 
soft, clinging gray, with white chiffon at 
the fair throat and wrists, that fluttered 
like a sea-gull’s wings against a dull sky 
as she flew to the door and greeted her 
friend. 

“ You angel of mercy! I was so afraid 
you couldn’t, or you wouldn’t, or you 
mustn’t, or something — that subjunctive 
of yours is the bane of my existence.” 
And she laughed and pushed Mrs. Ennis 
into an arm-chair, and placed a footstool 
for her, lifting each square-toed, heavy- 
soled boot and putting it down on the soft 
plush cover, one at a time, with a tender- 
ness that did not escape her friend. Then 
a cushion was laid under her head, and 
Alice exclaimed : 

“ There! It’s the thing nowadays to 
make even hanging as comfortable as pos- 
sible, so it’s the very least I can do for 
my little victim.” 


1 6 SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 

Mrs. Ennis gave herself up to the girl’s 
whim, folding her busy hands on her lap. 

Always of an exquisite timbre and cul- 
tivated up to the limit of the social law in 
such matters, Alice’s voice had in it that 
night an additional passionate throb that 
sent the tears at once to Mrs. Ennis’s eyes, 
and they stayed there through song after 
song. 

Then the girl suddenly stopped, and 
wheeled round on the stool. The soft, 
yellow light from the shaded piano-lamp 
fell about her like a radiance in the other- 
wise darkened room. 

“ Isn’t that enough? I never know 
when to stop when I have you at my 
mercy; you’re just the dear old gallery, 
which doesn’t know one note from another, 
and yet has critical emotions, fresh and 
honest, with none of the pedantry of the 
orchestra nor the subdivided interest of 
the boxes. I know there are tears in 
your eyes, and I’m afraid I can’t sing any- 
thing to-night to drive them away. Life 
seems all in a minor key — I mean as Wag- 
ner manages it — not thinly sentimental and 
genteelly pathetic, but harsh and terrible, 
with clashing discords that make one want 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


17 


to scream with the agony of it all. There ! 
my singing’s better than this sort of thing, 
at least. I’ll spare you.” 

She turned again to the piano and sang, 
without the music, Grieg, Franz, Lassen ; 
then once more back to Grieg. Then her 
voice was still, and her fingers played over 
and over again a curious succession of 
chords, that ended in a sort of interroga- 
tion. Finally she said, softly : 

“ There’s something I haven’t sung 
since Archie went away. I feel like sing- 
ing it to-night for you. You see it ends 
in a long, rather high note, held endlessly 
with a slight tremolo, dying out and com- 
ing back in a sort of echo. One evening 
he said it carried him back to Japan. 
There’s a park called Shiba, near Tokio, 
I think he said, where there’s a huge statue 
of Buddha, and a temple near by with a 
bell whose notes go ringing on and on, 
dying away and then returning in a won- 
derful way ; so he called the song ‘ Shiba, ’ 
and this is the way it goes — ” A sharp 
knock at the door startled them both. 

“Let me go!” cried Mrs. Ennis, for 
what reason she never knew as long as she 
lived. 


1 8 SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 

“The idea!” said Alice, opening the 
door with a laugh. A telegraph-boy stood 
outside, and he inquired : 

“ Miss Alice Blithe? ” 

There was a flash from her jewelled hand 
as she tore open the envelope the boy 
handed to her. An instant’s silence, and 
with only a moan of, “ Oh, my God ! ” the 
girl threw out her arms as if pushing some- 
thing back from her, and fell backward 
as if struck. The paper and envelope 
fluttered to the floor more slowly. Mrs. 
Ennis sprang to her feet, closed the door, 
calling Mrs. Percy again and again. She 
rang the bell and sent for a doctor — she 
was so sure of the contents of that hideous 
yellow paper — working meanwhile over the 
senseless girl, who lay as one dead. Mrs. 
Percy came in frightened and bewildered. 

“What’s the matter? I was sound 
asleep; I thought it was fire. Why doesn’t 
Alice get up ? What is it ? ” 

“I don’t know any more than you do,” 
Mrs. Ennis found herself saying coldly. 
“A telegram came, and this is the result. 
I beg you to go at once for Maggie ; I must 
have help.” 

Mrs. Percy read the telegram aloud first : 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


19 


“From Montevideo. ‘Lieutenant Endi- 
cott died March twentieth. Buried at 
sea.’ Signed ‘Wescott, Commander.’” 

Mrs. Percy laid the paper down gently, 
and left the room instantly and in silence. 
It was then the first week in April, and 
they had not known. 

For two days Alice was happily oblivi- 
ous to everything, and the doctor made 
those three visits a day that represent so 
many fights with death. Mrs. Ennis stayed 
by her day and night, the children going 
to a neighbor’s, until there was some change 
in the stricken girl. When the dry 
white lips first moved, Mrs. Ennis bent 
closely and caught : 

“ Un beau matin on voit la, 

Un beau vaisseau — Pedro,” 

and after that there were days of delirium, 
with terrible bursts of singing and pitiful 
laughter. 

Two trained nurses came, and Mrs. 
Ennis took up her own life again, and with 
it a terror that would not leave her for an 
hour. The children tiptoed and whispered 
about their rooms, three floors removed. 

After a fortnight Alice was better, free 


20 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


from fever, and conscious, lying almost 
pulseless, following with wide-stretched, va- 
cant eyes the figures moving about her room. 

Dr. Knutt did not like the looks of 
things, and he sent for Mrs. Ennis and told 
her as much, as they walked up and down 
together in the hall outside the sick-room. 

“I want you to use your woman’s wits 
— stir her up, wake her up, shake her up, 
somehow. I consider it pure philanthropy 
to force her to live, willy-nilly. There are 
plenty of good women, in the world — a 
doctor knows that; and there are entirely 
too many clever ones. But beauty like 
Miss Blithe’s is rare and owes its leaven 
to the lump. I know, I know! ” he ex- 
claimed, in response to a deprecatory move- 
ment of Mrs. Ennis’s hands. “All the 
same, I’ll stick to it, and a big dose of 
statistics once a day wouldn’t hurt the 
whole lot of you. Well, good-night,” and 
he stamped off down the long corridor. 

Then there came the bright May morn- 
ing and the telegram for Mrs. Ennis from 
Staten Island, which said : 

“ Arrived daybreak. Am well. Pack everything. 
Come immediately. Wire your train. Address 
Stapleton. George Ennis.” 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


21 


Not until then did the woman’s brave 
heart falter, much as an infant’s tiny feet 
totter as they near the open arms at the 
end of their first little journey in the world. 
But she managed to say, quietly : 

“The ship’s in, Preston. Papa wants 
us. Take Dorothy into the other room 
and get her toys together.” 

Behind the closed door she gave way 
completely, and kneeling at her bedside 
she laid her head on her pillow — that wom- 
an’s Gethsemane — which had known of 
her lonely, wakeful nights, the tears of 
weariness, and later that agony of suspense. 

“It is over — it is over, thank God ! Oh, 
my love, my love, no one will ever know 
what it has been,” she whispered. Then 
she arose and walked up and down the little 
room, nervously patting her left hand with 
her right in unconscious self pity, as she 
would have soothed Dorothy’s woes. 

The instinct of motherhood in some wom- 
en even encompasses themselves. A smile 
came slowly to her lips, a happy light to 
her eyes that took ten years from her age; 
then she stood and laughed aloud, called the 
children to her and kissed them, answering 
twenty excited questions in a breath. 


22 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


They had three hours before the express 
train left for New York. She had studied 
it out long ago, and did not lose a mo- 
ment. The delight of her stinted life, the 
Indian rug given by the wardroom of the 
Marion as a wedding present, was rolled 
up and slipped into the canvas bag, and 
with a score of strong stitches across the 
end it stood ready. The diagonal flights 
of Havana fans came down from the walls 
with a rush. The children’s joy, the 
Chinese flag, with its green-backed dragon 
reaching out with almost vegetable ardor 
for the fiery sun, fell without parley. Eight 
little gilt-headed tacks in each room were 
wrenched out, and down slid the blue 
Japanese chijimi curtains. Wall, tables, 
and closets were stripped in a flash, the 
trunks packed, and in less than two hours 
after the glad news came, the little high- 
perched rooms that had been their home 
for so long, were bare, cheerless, character- 
less — a home no more; simply number 
seventy, fourth floor. 

Mrs. Ennis stood ready, dressed as ever, 
two years behind the fashions, but with a 
glow of her plain, strong face that made 
her almost beautiful. 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


23 


The children, in a mood for exalted obe- 
dience, sat holding hands, wide-eyed. The 
mother drew a deep breath of relief; then 
suddenly she started and exclaimed : 

“Alice ! ” 

She took off her hat, and in two minutes 
was standing by the girl’s bedside. Her 
hands were cold and trembled so, she dared 
not give the accustomed caress. She sat 
where her face could not be seen, and then 
said gently, fighting down the throb in her 
voice: 

“Alice, I’m going away for a little 
while; but, of course, if you need me or 
even want me — you see how conceited 
you’ve made me! — you must let me know 
at once. You’ll do that, won’t you? ” 

At the first word the girl turned her head 
with an effort, so that she could see her 
friend’s profile. 

“Your father ill?” she asked, faintly, in 
the voice that had changed even more than 
her face. 

“Oh, no — that is, I hope not; although 
you remember I told you I feel very 
anxious about him, and — ” Mrs. Ennis 
was too honest, too simple, for the task. 
Alice watched her intently, detecting at 


24 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


once, with the invalid’s quickened sensibil- 
ity, first the repressed excitement, then the 
false note. 

“Are you going there?” she asked in 
the same slow tone, expressionless way. 

“Oh, yes! later — that is, I must go first 
— elsewhere. Now, Alice, I’ll write a line 
every day, and I’ve arranged with Mrs. 
Percy to ” 

“I know what it is ! I know just what 
it is ! ” suddenly exclaimed Alice, excitedly, 
dragging herself up on the pillows. Mrs. 
Ennis’s heart gave a bound, and then seemed 
to stop. 

“It’s our ship — it has come! Our ship 
has come in ! ” She sat erect, with dilated 
eyes looking ahead. Mrs. Ennis threw her- 
self on her knees, with her arms about the 
girl, and buried her face. 

“ I’d be so glad if I could only feel any- 
thing; but you know I’m glad, don’t you, 
’way down under it all? I can see it, I can 
see it ! You said it would be this way; 
I remember every word : First the tiny 
streamer of smoke ’way down the bay — it’s 
not like other smoke, somehow ; we can 
always tell it, can’t we? And the tugs 
and the other things get out of the way, 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


2 5 


don’t they?” and she laughed a little. 
“And then she comes in sight, so slowly, 
just creeping along, and she looks so dingy 
and tired, somehow, from the long, long 
way she’s come. And then we can see the 
long, homeward-bound pennant fluttering, 
and the big black bunches of sailors in the 
front, and the little dark knots of officers at 
the back, and each one looks exactly like 
the one — the one we — ” She stopped, and 
then, with a terrible cry, she threw herself 
forward on the bed, and broke into wild, 
heartrending sobs. 

Mrs. Ennis struggled to her feet and ran 
to the door, which she found ajar, and Dr. 
Knutt standing there smiling. He drew 
her outside, shut the door, and shook her 
hand till it ached. 

“ Nothing could be better ! I’m simply 
delighted. I knew you’d find a way. 
We’ll have her as right as a trivet in two 
weeks — you’ll see. Trust me a little and 
nature a great deal. I tell you this has 
saved her life. Haven’t you got to plough 
before new seeds are sown? Well! Now 
you run away, and I’ll send old Maggie in 
to her. All she needs is a little Irish baby- 
ing. Confound these sailors, anyhow, for 


26 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


the way they have with the womenkind ! ’ ’ 
he muttered to himself when alone. 

As the express train went slowly into the 
station at Jersey City, Mrs. Ennis ex- 
claimed : 

“ Don’t miss a single face, Preston ! ” 

“Did you say a beard, mamma? I’ve 
forgotten. Maybe I won’t know him ; I’m 
so sorry,” and the boy’s voice broke. 

“The last letter said no beard. Never 
mind, dear; mamma isn’t at all sure she’ll 
know him herself,” and she laughed ex- 
citedly. 

The train stopped, and they got out, but 
no one greeted them. They stood out of 
the line of people hurrying toward the 
ferries. Mrs. Ennis gripped Preston’s hand 
and cried to him, pitifully : 

“ Oh, my boy ! do you think anything 
can be wrong ? ’ ’ 

“It’s all right, I’m just as sure as sure 
can be,” the little man kept saying, bravely, 
swallowing the rising lumps in his throat. 
Then a deep voice behind them said : 

“Isn’t this Mrs. Ennis — the wife of Sur- 
geon Ennis of the ” 

“Yes, yes; what is it? Why can’t you 
speak ? ’ ’ she cried, turning fiercely. She 


SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 


27 


was white to the lips, and moisture stood 
out on her face in beads. 

“Why, mamma, it’s Frohman ! ” ex- 
claimed Preston, recognizing his old friend, 
the ship’s apothecary, who said, quickly : 

“ Dr. Ennis is perfectly well. He was 
detained on board, and told me to give you 
this,” handing her a note, which she tore 
open, reading hungrily the hasty pencilled 
lines : 

“My darling, I’m so sorry not to meet 
you ! You cannot feel it more than I do. 
The navigator is ill — there’s a consultation — 
I had to be here. Think of his wife, and 
have courage for a few hours more. Seven 
o’clock, sure ! Frohman will look after 
you. Go to the Gramercy Park House. 
Get nice rooms. Don’t stint yourself. 
Saved a pile on the home run. Love to my 
babies, and God bless you — the best, brav- 
est, truest, bonniest wife in the world ! ” 



MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


There were mornings of hard work 
among the wives of the North Atlantic 
squadron at the rendezvous in Hampton 
Roads, before the fleet went South for the 
winter. And afternoons of gayety, laughter, 
music, and dancing, for it must be done with 
a brave front, as sailors return to their ship 
after burying a comrade in some far, strange 
land, their feet keeping step to a wanton jig, 
even if hearts lag a bit out of time. And 
there were long quiet evenings spent apart 
loverlike, by each couple, young and old 
alike, in those strangely happy homes in the 
navy, that have no habitation, but where 
reigns good love and an abiding tenderness, 
preserved with a pathetic significance by 
separation and the ever-haunting element of 
danger. 

Some of the women had a way of meeting 
after breakfast in Mrs. Kirk’s rooms at the 
hotel at Old Point Comfort, as she, among 
other advantages, always travelled with a 
3i 


3 2 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


hand-sewing machine, and a wonderful ar- 
rangement of her own for heating an iron 
over gas-jets. So in face of all the bed- 
linen, towels, and napkins to be hemmed 
and marked for the sea outfits, besides the 
usual ingenious beautifying of cramped state- 
rooms, to acknowledge Mrs. Kirk’s popu- 
larity once for all had at least the merit of 
frankness. 

“ Where do you get all your ideas?” ex- 
claimed little Miss Catherwood, who had 
just borrowed a pattern of the very last thing 
in ornamentally useless shoe-bags, and was 
slashing excitedly into the pale green.denim, 
sitting on the floor under Mrs. Kirk’s eyes. 

“ My dear child, I’ve been ‘ on the road,’ 
as Joe calls it, twenty-three years. I’ve 
fitted that man out for sea six times, count- 
ing broken cruises, you know; besides my 
son’s two Academy cruises, to say nothing 
whatever of the three ward-room messes ; for 
I couldn’t let those poor men — of course Joe 
said it was none of my business, and if he 
didn’t give me enough trouble to keep me 
occupied it could be easily remedied — you 
know the way he goes on ! Well, all the 
same I simply could not sit still and see them 
pay the scandalous prices they always do for 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


33 


table-cloths — ordinary checker-board trash, 
mind you — and china, and glass and ” 

“Thanks be to what’s-his-name those 
days are over ! ’ ’ interrupted Mrs. Holster, 
in her rattling way. She was short and 
stout and purple in the face as she knelt be- 
fore a flat-topped trunk, eking out, by agon- 
ized pressure, the waning heat of a flat-iron, 
on a last pillow-case corner. 

“I remember the days when it used to 
cost the doctor seventy-five dollars to fit out 
for sea-service. Now, since the Department 
supplies the mess things, we get off with 
about twenty-five,” remarked pale, serious 
Mrs. Cleveling, who admittedly did not show 
for it, but who was known to have that rare 
form of naval happiness called “money of 
her own.” 

“ As I was saying,” resumed Mrs. Kirk, a 
little austerely at the interruption, naturally 
expecting a sort of grateful attention at 
least in return for other more tangible 
liberalities. 

“ Come in ! ” screamed Mrs. Holster, who 
never burdened herself with points of 
etiquette, in response to a knock on the 
door. 

Mrs. Kirk raised her eyebrows, deliber- 


34 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


ately took off her glasses, then arose and 
opened the door, the embroidered sponge- 
bag still in her hand. 

“ Mrs. Catherwood’s compliments, and 
is Mrs. Kirk at home?” said the bell-boy, 
lifelessly. * 

“Well — er,” hesitated Mrs. Kirk, turn- 
ing and eying the general condition of con- 
gested confusion. 

“We’d all better leave,” suggested Mrs. 
Cleveling, calmly threading the needle of 
the sewing-machine. 

“Just give us two seconds to scratch up 
our things,” seconded Mrs. Holster, making 
a palpable feint at moving. 

Miss Catherwood alone scrambled to her 
feet at the first word of the bell-boy, jumbled 
all her work together, and slipped out of the 
door. 

“Oh, not at all,” ventured Mrs. Kirk, 
watching the others attentively. 

“ Mrs. Catherwood’s compliments, and is 

Mrs. ” again began the colored boy, as 

irritably as he dared. 

“ I quite understand, Robert, and you 
may say to Mrs. Catherwood that Mrs. Kirk 
is at home ’ ’ 

“I declare it’s too bad,” ejaculated Mrs. 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 35 

Holster, in a greatly relieved tone, settling 
down comfortably beside the trunk. 

“ and will see her in the ladies’ recep- 

tion-room,” continued Mrs. Kirk, trium- 
phantly. 

An embittered silence followed Mrs. 
Kirk’s smiling exit. 

Finally Mrs. Cleveling sighed and said : 

“ I think she might have let her come 
right in, she’s only one of us, after all, with 
all her airs — and it wouldn’t have hurt any- 
body, that I can see.” 

“ It’s something about Mollie Cather- 
wood’s engagement, you may be sure. Mrs. 
Kirk and Mrs. Catherwood have been at it 
tooth and nail, ever since Mr. Spencer pro- 
posed and was accepted. He’s one of Mrs. 
Kirk’s pets, you know. I can’t get much 
out of her — she’s as tight’s an oyster — but I 
worm it out of James, and there’s precious 
little those men miss. They say Mrs. Cath- 
erwood seems to fairly hate her step-daughter, 
and is moving heaven and earth to break 
the engagement. The Admiral’s as helpless 
as a baby in his wife’s hands. He’s one of 
those domestic-peace-at-any-price sort of 
men, you know. Mrs. Kirk says he’s out 
of his element on land. And do you know, 


36 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


Mrs. Cleveling — of course you won’t repeat 
this — they say the step-mother sent for Mr. 
Spencer, since we’ve been here, and told him 
that he ought to release Molly, as there’s 
somebody else the girl really cared for, and 
she considered it her duty to ’ * 

“No!” cried the other, stopping in the 
middle of a seam in the laundry-bag. 

“Yes, indeed, and Mr. Spencer was per- 
fectly wild, and rushed back to the ship and 
wrote an awful letter to Molly, and Molly 
didn’t understand, and was half-crazy, until 
she sent for Mrs. Kirk — her own mother’s 
old friend — and how long do you think it 
took that woman to untangle the whole 
thing?” Mrs. Holster demanded, laugh- 
ingly. 

“ She’s a handful,” said the other. 

“ Precisely forty-five minutes — you see, 
Mr. Spencer had to signal for a shore-boat 
after he got her note. ’ ’ 

“Well, if Mrs. Kirk’s backing her, and 
I’m any.judge, Molly’ll marry her ensign in 
the end,” and Mrs. Cleveling gave a dry 
little laugh as she shook and began folding 
her work. 

“ Exactly so,” giggled Mrs. Holster. 

After which they felt mutually impelled to 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


37 


rise and leave, but not before putting every- 
thing in almost painful order, and picking 
up the very last thread.' 

There was a hop on the flag-ship that 
afternoon, from three to six, to which the 
Admiral’s wife did not go, but to which her 
step-daughter did, under Mrs. Kirk’s eagle 
wing. 

“How did you manage it?” whispered 
the girl, nestling up to her friend in the 
steam-launch, her brown, clear child’s eyes 
looking gratefully up into the gray-haired 
woman’s deeply lined, lovable old face. 

“ There’s a way of thundering generalities 
* at long range, and if one’s aim is anyway 
good, little pop-gun personalities are very 
soon silenced — you may find it useful to 
remember that some day, dear,” was the un- 
satisfactory reply. 

As Mrs. Kirk stepped on deck a few min- 
utes later, a broad-shouldered young officer 
seized her hand and whispered : 

“ Is she here? Did you bring her? Has 
she come, Mrs. Kirk? I haven’t really let 
myself more than hope, but as I have the 
deck, I couldn’t get ashore to find out, 
and ” 

“If you’ll stop talking one second, Basil 


38 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


Spencer, and give me a chance, I was about 
to tell you that she ’ 1 

“You angel !” he cried; and against all 
maritime and social laws, he squeezed by the 
line of people filing up the gangway ladder, 
and grasped the little white-gloved hand 
held out from the shadowed depths of the 
steam-launch. 

“It’s barn I was and bred in a bit av 
a lane contagious to Ballyneen — Cark, ye 
know — and I’ll take me oat’ to the sound av 
birds a-mating, and that’s moighty loike 
thechune av it,” said Moriarty — machinist — 
with one hand on a lever in the launch and 
jerking the other toward the young couple 
scrambling up the swaying gangway. 

And the fireman, with the smile of a man 
of even superior experience, thought so 
too. 

Three things combined to the happy 
working out of an idea which had possessed 
Mrs. Kirk for about twenty-four hours. 
First, Ensign Spencer being officer of the 
deck, could not dance, but was amenable 
to restricted conversation ; second, the Ad- 
miral was there, and his wife, very unwisely, 
was not ; third, Lieutenant - Commander 
Kirk was ashore on official duty with the 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 39 

Fleet Paymaster — and so safely out of sight 
and sound. 

Mrs. Kirk felt it to be one of the many 
substantial compensations of middle age 
that she could rise at will, cross the deck, 
and boldly pin down the ensign’s wander- 
ing attention. 

“ Look at me, Mr. Spencer, and listen. 
The little figure in gray is still there ; and, 
moreover, although she is dancing with a lot 
of other men — all of whom doubtless adore 
her — still I can assure you that she has 
confessed to a misguided preference for you ; 
so be at peace and give me your whole at- 
tention for five minutes, if you can.” 

With a thumb stuck into his belt, he 
bowed low before her. 

“You know perfectly well, madam, that 
at the merest hint I am all yours, forever 
and aye, eyes, ears, head, heart ” 

“ Oh, hush, boy, I want to talk sense for 
once, and I’m in a hurry. Now, may I say 
anything, ask anything I like? ” 

In the most debonair way in the world 
he smiled, throwing out and waving the 
hand which held the spy-glass ; but the 
smile fled and it went through him like a 
galvanic shock, when she asked, sternly : 


40 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


“ Are you in debt, sir?” 

“Well, by Jove ! ” he stammered, blink- 
ing at her with his merry gray eyes. 

“Shocking, isn’t it? Well, I have no 
daughters, but I have theories, and I’m 
working out one of them. I like you im- 
mensely, always have ; approve of Molly’s 
choice and all that — but there’s a lot I must 
know before I really let myself go. Well, 
you haven’t answered me.” 

“ I don’t owe a copper cash on earth, 
Mrs. Kirk.” 

“ Paid for all your uniforms ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Including the last change of the last 
Secretary in the cap, shoulder-straps, and 
blouse ? ’ ’ 

He laughed and nodded. 

“ Got anything on the books? ” 

‘ ‘ Six hundred and thirty-four dollars 
since Molly said ‘yes,’ and of course I 
joined the Mutual Aid,” he replied, proud- 
ly. “Stingy? Why, my wine-bill for last 
month was just seventy cents, and I be- 
grudged that.” 

“ Good ! Well — er, is there possibly any- 
one dependent upon you ? ’ ’ 

“Not now,” he said, gently; “there’s 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


41 


only my sister left, and my pay wouldn’t 
keep her in white violets.” 

“ Perhaps there’s a little something out- 
side your pay ? ’ ’ wheedled Mrs. Kirk. He 
fairly shouted : 

“ Oh, come in ! take a chair, get out 
your knitting, do; make yourself perfectly 
at home,” he mocked. 

“ I propose to my young friend.” 

“ Well, yes — there’s about seven and a 
half cents a year — nothing to blow about.” 

“Molly has about ‘ seven and a half 
cents,’ too, from her mother.” 

“Has she? I didn’t know,” he mut- 
tered, hastily, in the American shame-faced 
way. 

“Yes, and everything counts in the 
navy; it’ll come in very handy some day. 
I remember so well at the end of the first 
month we were married, there was exactly 
five dollars left of the family funds, and we 
•tossed up to see whether he should buy one 
of the new-shaped derby hats, or I a pair of 
cork-soled boots I had taken a fancy to. 
Joe won it, and then, bless you ! we spent 
it like the two happy young idiots we were, 
on the theatre, and oysters and musty ale 
afterward — down Boston way.” 


42 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


They laughed together, and then he 
asked, meekly, still not daring to let his 
eyes wander : 

“Please, ma’am, is the little figure in 
gray still there ? ’ ’ 

“ It is, and dancing with a far handsomer 
man than you.” 

“Who’s that?” he demanded, sharply, 
turning truculently to see, to her intense 
delight. 

“ You may go now ; I’ve done with you.” 

He strode away, but after a few steps he 
returned and exclaimed : 

“ By the bye, Mrs. Kirk, what was it all 
about anyway ? This catechism ? And 
have I passed ? ’ ’ 

She waved him off. 

“You have passed — the rest is my af- 
fair.” 

The rest seemed to consist in tracking 
Admiral Catherwood to his cabin, where, 
having a slight cold, he held a reception 
between dances all the afternoon. 

Mrs. Kirk waited for one of the lulls in 
the intermittent stream and then settled 
comfortably down on the transom beside his 
desk. 

The Chief Engineer was turning over 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


43 


photographs in the after-cabin, and beside 
him the widow whose open designs upon 
him was one of the jokes of the flag-ship, so 
Mrs. Kirk had the Admiral quite to herself. 

“ It seems like old times to come into 
your cabin for a little chat,” she began, 
smiling into the fine, white-bearded face 
before her. 

“ A long, long time ago, wasn’t it, Mrs. 
Kirk? ” he said, smiling back. 

“ You were captain then — one of the war 
captains, 'weren’t you? And we were all 
young together.” 

“ In the Mediterranean.” 

“Yes.” 

“ Remember Venice ? ’ ’ 

“ Dear old days ! ” 

There was a short silence, then he glanced 
about and lowered his voice. 

“ She — she had an especial fondness for 
Venice, do you remember? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And do you remember that morning on 
the piazza when the pigeon lighted on her 
shoulder ’ ’ 

“ A little white one, yes.” 

“ And she suddenly ran to me and burst 
out crying, to our dismay, and she said it 


44 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


was all too good to last, she was too happy, 
too — ” His voice broke, and hers took 
it up and mused very softly, to give him 
time. 

“And she dropped her little cornucopia 
of corn, and the pigeons came in a whirl 
about us, standing there in the warm sun- 
shine.” 

She waited a moment in silent sympathy 
and then said : 

“ Molly grows more and more like her 
mother every day, don’t you think so, Ad- 
miral?” 

“Yes, but she’ll never be as beautiful. 
And yet it almost hurts sometimes, and one 
evening (I think I must have been dozing) 
I called her by her mother’s name. It was a 
shock to us all,” he added, grimly. 

Mrs. Kirk found no difficulty in imagining 
the situation in its several bearings. 

“ I wonder,” he began, hesitatingly, turn- 
ing toward the desk in his revolving chair — 
“ do you know, Mrs. Kirk, I’ve got a little 
carte de visite of Annie I’d like to show 
you. I like it better than any I ever had of 
her.” 

He gave an embarrassed cough, and then 
began fumbling with the lock of one of the 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


45 


side drawers of his desk. She sat watching 
him with kindly eyes as he leaned over a 
bundle tied separately, from which he gently 
drew an envelope. And then it was his turn 
to watch Mrs. Kirk’s face for a reflex of his 
own admiration. 

A much more acute observer of women 
than the Admiral would never have sup- 
posed for an instant that she considered 
it a wretched likeness of a much loved face, 
nor that she was saying to herself at that 
moment : 

“ The longer the Admiral is married to 
the second Mrs. Cathervvood, the more ten- 
der grow all memories of the first Mrs. Cath- 
erwood.” 

It was very easy after that for her to say, 
making a move at last on the board she had 
set to her liking : 

“Well, if Mr. Spencer will only make 
Molly half as happy as you did her moth- 
er ” 

“ Why, there’s nothing in that, is there? ” 
he asked, surprised. 

“ There’s everything in it, Admiral.” 

“ Is that so? Is that so? Mrs. Cather- 
wood seems to think it’ll blow over. To be 
sure, Molly came off one night and took din- 


46 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


ner here alone with me, and she told me a 
long rigmarole, and laughed and teased and 
whispered with her little nose tucked into 
my blouse, but I didn’t pay much attention 
to it, especially after I’d talked it over with 
Mrs. Catherwood.” 

“It’s hard to give up our babies, isn’t 
it?” she said, gently; “but Annie’s little 
girl is a woman now, and she has chosen, 
and Joe and I think very wisely. I’ve known 
him since he was a cadet ; he graduated in 
my boy’s plebe year.” 

“Fine enough young fellow, as far as I 
know; but, good Lord, Mrs. Kirk, he’s 
only an ensign.” 

“ Annie fell in love with an ensign once.” 

“So she did; so she did,” he laughed, 
softly to himself, and added, naively : 

“But what Molly can find in young 
Spencer to want to spend her entire life with 
him, is beyond me.” 

It was her turn to laugh, saying : 

“Don’t you think all our marriages are 
more or less of a mystery to our relations ? ’ ’ 

“Um — Yes, I dare say, and to our- 
selves, too, sometimes,” he ruminated; then 
he recognized his inadvertence with a start, 
and asked, quickly : 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


47 


“ You were saying ? ” 

“ That you have no real objection to him, 
then.” 

“ No, no ; not in the least — and we must 
have Annie’s wee bairn happy — I insist on 
that,” he said, with all the vehemence of 
cowardice. 

“ Because, of course, I would not push 
anything you personally opposed for the 
world, and I warn you, Admiral, I’ve gone 
heart and soul in for this little love affair.” 
She arose as she spoke, and held out her 
hand. 

The Chief Engineer rewarded Mrs. Kirk 
with a glance of strenuous gratitude, then 
she approached and carried off the reluctant 
widow. . 

“She’ll land you yet, Chief,” laughed 
the Admiral, when they had the cabin to 
themselves. Smiling feebly and muttering 
something about “ signing the steam log,” 
the old Chief slunk sheepishly away. 

Mr. Spencer had been relieved at eight 
bells, had laid aside the belt and binocular 
of office, and had assumed an immediate con- 
tinuous and triumphant guard over the small 
person in gray. 

He had cornered her, so that no living 


48 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


thing born of woman could approach her, 
and there Mrs. Kirk’s sweeping glance found 
and brooded over them. 

They were past the laughing ripple and 
splash of love running over its first sunny 
shallows, and were among the sad, sweet 
silences of deeper pools, farther down nearer 
the sea of nature’s ends, and the gray eyes 
looked into the brown eyes smilelessly. 

“ Molly,” demanded Mrs. Kirk, abruptly, 
an hour later, as they walked down the 
wharf to the hotel, “ has the Admiral’s wife 
really anyone else in her mind, or is it a man 
of straw ? ’ ’ 

“ I’m afraid so,” was the luminous reply. 

“Rich, old, wicked, and hideous,” as- 
serted Mrs. Kirk, fiercely. 

“ Handsome, stupid, young, only what’s 
called ‘rising,’ I believe; but oh, Mrs. 
Kirk ! he’s perfectly, awfully, disgustingly 
horrid.” 

“ Some sort of relation of hers, per- 
chance. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ How did you know ? ” in amazement. 

Mrs. Kirk cleverly turned a scornful snort 
into an extremely lady-like cough. 

That evening she noticed that Molly did 
not appear at dinner, and she strolled past 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 49 

the Cathervvood table on her way out, and 
stopped to inquire. 

“ Mary overdid it this afternoon, as she 
always does when I’m not with her,” was 
the sweet response, with that voice and air of 
ultra-refinement that Mrs. Kirk found so 
wearing. The Admiral started to say some- 
thing, but changed his mind, and Mrs. Kirk 
passed on. 

“Oh, Mrs. Kirk, please, please stop one 
rpinute — come into my room — something 
awful’s happened. I’ve been watching for 
you,” cried a forlorn little figure in a volu- 
minous wrapper, darting out suddenly upon 
her. 

* Mrs. Kirk threw out an arm and swept 
the girl back into her room, shut and locked 
the door, closed the transom in a flash, then 
extended both arms toward Molly, who 
cast herself into them and broke into violent 
sobs. 

“ Oh, nothing’s quite so hopeless as that, 
dear heart; nothing’s as bad as that,” cooed 
Mrs. Kirk, in a motherly way, patting Molly’s 
shoulder, and letting her have her cry out. 
Finally came in gasps : 

“ She — she’s just told us — papa and me — 
that she’s booked us for Havre — she and 


5 ° 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


I — to sail next Wednesday — and the fleet 
doesn’t sail till Saturday; and that — that 
man is going, too, for he wrote me so months 
ago. And papa said — Oh, Mrs. Kirk, papa 
said : ‘ D — damn everything ! ’ and that did 
seem just — just too much,” and Molly re- 
newed her weeping. 

“I should think it might,” came sooth- 
ingly from Mrs. Kirk. 

“And they’ll hide letters and things — 
I’m just as sure — and ruin both our lives 
forever and ever — Basil’s and mine.” 

“ So that’s why your father couldn’t meet 
my eye to-night, poor old dear,” was Mrs. 
Kirk’s sole comment. 

After awhile she said : 

“Go and bathe your face now, Molly, 
and when you get quite quiet again, come 
and sit down here opposite me; I’ve got 
something to say. I made up my mind 
yesterday to interfere — although it’s a thing 
I’m constitutionally opposed to, as you 
know — and this only hurries matters some- 
what. ’ ’ 

When the poor little grief-distorted face 
was turned to her once more, Mrs. Kirk 
drew a long breath, and leaning forward, 
said : 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 51 

“ Now are you ready for something tre- 
mendous ? Something radical ? * * 

“ Anything you — ” A sharp rap on 
the door made them both start guiltily, and 
they waited in silence with fingers on their 
lips, until an impatient swish of vanishing 
skirts announced a danger passed. 

“ Then if you and Mr. Spencer have a 
grain of sense and will-power between you, 
you’ll get married at once — here, this week, 
at the Post Chapel, and then you and I can 
join the fleet later at Key West when they 
go there for drills ; and then we ’ ’ 

“Mrs. Kirk!” cried the girl, now on 
her feet, staring wildly, “ that’s just what 
Basil was begging me to do this after- 
noon ! ” 

“Sensible Basil! Oh, I’ll put you 
through — leave them all to me.” Mrs. 
Kirk was extremely exhilarated. 

“ It can’t be done — it simply cannot be 
done,” protested Molly, walking to and fro 
excitedly, the tide of difficulties rising mo- 
mentarily around her very feet. 

“You — you haven’t anything that would 
do for a quiet morning wedding, have you? 
Something that would be suitable, with a 
bunch of roses and just the right hat and 


52 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


gloves?” The younger woman hesitated, 
and forthwith fell into the trap. 

“My new winter suit came this very 
morning from Baltimore. It might — I 
don’t know — ” Molly began to laugh reck- 
lessly. 

“It’s not black?” fairly shrieked the 
other in a sudden panic. 

“ No, the new blue.” 

“ Something new, 

Something blue,” 

sang Mrs. Kirk, breaking off suddenly with 
“ Hat too ? The whole business ? ’ * 

“ The whole business.” 

“ Let me see it,” ordered Mrs. Kirk, ris- 
ing, and after that of course the rest of it 
was a mere matter of time. 

A half hour later, just as Mrs. Kirk was 
leaving the room, the girl flew up to her 
and then stood silent, with flushed, down- 
cast face, pretending a sudden interest in 
the other’s belt-ribbon. 

“What is it, Molly?” 

Miss Catherwood reached up and drew 
the gray head down to her and whispered : 

“You mustn’t — please, don’t write and let 
Basil think I’ve — I’ve jumped at it, will you?” 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


53 


Justly indignant, Mrs. Kirk replied : 

“ What sort of a woman do you take me 
for?” 

“ Well, I was just going back to the 
ship,” remarked Lieutenant - Commander 
Kirk, savagely, when his wife finally swept 
into their apartment and found him, watch 
in hand, obstinately refusing to do anything 
but count the flying moments. 

“I’ve been waiting exactly three-quar- 
ters of an hour ; and considering the fact 
that I’ve been on duty for the last forty- 
eight hours, I did expect ” 

“ Joe Kirk, you ought to be ashamed of 
yourself. Don’t you suppose I’d far rather 
be sitting quietly here, worshipping you, 
than trying to untie knots in other peo- 
ple’s lives, and sacrificing every inclination 
I have ? ’ ’ she exclaimed, wrathfully. 

He began to laugh and sat watching her, 
with eyes in which his own wrath had sud- 
denly died completely away. 

“ Well, Sue, so you’re at it again,” was 
all he said ; and although she struggled 
against it, she soon added her laugh to his. 
Then she went to him with the old caress 
she knew he was waiting for. 

“ Listen ! ” she exclaimed, standing back 


54 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


before his chair, and she poured out the 
whole plot down to the benediction. Then 
she braced herself Tor the verdict. 

He began solemnly, his eyes on the 
chandelier : 

“ ‘The punishment of death or such 
other punishment as a court-martial may 
adjudge, may be inflicted on any person 
in ’ ” 

“Joe, what do you mean? ” 

He mumbled on : 

“ ‘ who makes or attempts to make, 

or unites with any ’ ” 

“Joseph D. Kirk, if you ” 

“ ‘ does not immediately communi- 

cate his knowledge to his superior or com- 
manding officer,’ ” he ended, impressively. 
Then when he was tired of laughing at 
her, he said : 

“ Why, Sue, it’s mutiny, that’s what it is ! 
And somebody will dangle on the yard-arm 
for it — you’ll see.” 

“You don’t suppose — ” she began, ner- 
vously. 

“ Oh, go on, go on ! have your fun out, 
amuse yourself, dear; don’t mind me,” he 
cried, in evident enjoyment. 

Mrs. Kirk was never very clear in her 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


55 


mind about the next three days, but sev- 
eral facts stood clearly out from the gen- 
eral jumble. Notably, Mrs. Cleveling’s 
marvellously successful trip to Baltimore 
in Miss Catherwood’s behalf, where the 
lengths to which she made a very mod- 
est check go, were almost beyond belief. 
While Mrs. Holster, although hysterical 
from excitement, cut, ripped, sewed, and 
pressed till Molly fairly cried over a blister 
she discovered on her small, fat thumb. 

“People have such an aggravating way 
of disproving one’s previous estimate of 
them when it comes to emergencies,” re- 
marked Mrs. Kirk to her husband, who 
found the whole situation singularly stim- 
ulating. 

Mrs. Kirk, among other things, had had 
a short talk with Mrs. Catherwood, then 
a long talk with the Admiral, who then 
had a very brief one with his wife, the re- 
sult being that he retreated to the flag-ship, 
and did not come ashore till the day of the 
wedding, w’hile Mrs. Catherwood had her 
meals served in her room and refused to see 
anyone. 

The four other women in the “navy 
corner ” met and conspired together in 


56 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


Mrs. Kirk’s historic rooms, where Mr. 
Spencer was wont to vent publicly upon 
her thin, cold knuckles, in a manner hith- 
erto quite foreign to him, some of his pent- 
up gratitude. 

“ You angel ! ” again fell from his lips. 

“ All, if I could only convince Joe of 
that,” she sighed; thereupon Molly ap- 
pealed to the others, and pouted and scold- 
ed with the prettiest pretence of jealous rage, 
her eyes and cheeks and voice one quiver 
and blaze of happiness. 

Mrs. Catherwood did the right thing in 
the end, as Mrs. Kirk felt almost sure she 
would, and none but the few initiated ever 
fancied what was hidden beneath that 
gracious smile and motherly solicitude. 

The radiant, insistent presence of Mr. 
Spencer’s sister “ in a costume,” as Mrs. 
Holster said, “ that simply placed the whole 
affair,” helped them all to that conven- 
tional pose which Mrs. Kirk yearned for 
with an inconsistency that even she found 
incorrigible. 

There was the usual crush and perfumed 
rustle in the little old church inside the 
fort ; the organ throbbing through the vi- 
brating silence ; the lane of softened light 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


57 


from the open door ; the women with that 
air of festivity that they always manage to 
achieve on even the most limited notice ; 
the officers from the fleet and garrison in 
their several uniforms ; flowers here and 
there in high light ; then silence — and the 
chaplain of the flag-ship began to read the 
service in a voice that sent a quiver of 
relief through Mrs. Kirk’s overwrought 
nerves. She stared at the Admiral’s epau- 
lets, and above them at his silvery head 
before the altar, with tired eyes that would 
fill with tears in memory of old days, when 
all their heads were young ; and then she 
felt about blindly, until her hand found 
rest in Joe’s strong quiet grasp of perfect 
understanding. 

“I’m after tellin’ yer ! ” whispered Mo- 
riarty, with a poke at the fireman, as he 
sent the steam-launch flying on its way to 
the flag-ship, where the Admiral gave the 
wedding-breakfast. 

And while the launch waited, floating 
idly, Moriarty went back to it, more at his 
ease. 

“ Cushla machree ! ” he cried, with a kiss 
to the ship. 

“ Colleen bawn! ” returned the fireman, 


58 MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 

not to be left behind at weddings, if only 
hailing from the Bowery. 

“Agus asthore!” snapped Moriarty, 
firing up. 

‘ ‘ Alannah ! ’ * 

‘ ‘ Musha ! ’ ’ 

“ Mavourneen ! ” 

“Manim asthee hu, asthore galh ma- 
chree ! * ’ hissed Moriarty, wildly, and the 
fireman gave it up. 

Later, after the young couple had slipped 
away to Virginia Beach — so they said, one 
never knows — the Admiral found a chance 
to say hurriedly to Mrs. Kirk, to her great 
bewilderment of mind : 

“Don’t blame me altogether, it was a 
sort of bargain, to make things go off 
smoothly for little Molly — please don’t 
blame me altogether, and the boy’s out 
there — and — and — you understand.” But 
she didn’t in the least till later. 

She was in the depths of a natural reac- 
tion toward evening, when one of the Jap- 
anese ward-room boys from the flag-ship 
brought her a note from her husband. 

“Poor old Sue, more trunks, more sti- 
fling cars, more rolling ships ! We’re on 
the road again, dear. I knew I’d hang for 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


59 


that mutiny, sooner or later. Orders have 
just come detaching me, and sending me 
to the command of that cherished old 
navy tub, the Monocacy, popularly known 
as the Jinrikisha, which is at present in 
sweet, savory Chemulpo. Never mind, 
old girl, the joy of saying ‘ I told you so’ 
tides over everything for me, and you’re 
to go along, of course. I’ll draw three 
months’ advance — so cheer up, your 
blessed boy is out there; we’ll see him in 
Kobe, if all goes well — and then I’ll com- 
mand my first ship at last ! ’ ’ 

“ Joe, Joe, what have I done? ” wailed 
Mrs. Kirk, tears running down her face. 
‘ * This is her work — the — the fiend ! She 
bullied the Admiral into it — that’s what 
he meant.” Then suddenly she began to 
laugh. She dried her eyes, and just as she 
was, letter in hand, she knocked at Mrs. 
Catherwood’s door, and burst into the 
room with nicely calculated impulse, and 
quite without her accustomed ceremony. 

“Oh, do forgive my running in on you 
in this way, but I have a piece of good 
news that really wouldn’t keep a second. 
Joe has just got orders to the China Sta- 
tion ! Just what we’ve been plotting, and 


6o 


MUTINY ON THE FLAG-SHIP 


planning, and wire-pulling, and hoping, 
and longing for for two mortal years. My 
boy is out there ; maybe you didn’t know? 
We have friends all over Asia; we were 
there ten years ago, and then Joe’ll have 
his first command, and he’s perfectly de- 
lighted, and we’ll go out together over- 
land and by mail steamer, and — it makes 
me feel young again, just to think of it ; ” 
she stopped, fairly out of breath. 

“How very nice,” was all Mrs. Cath- 
erwood said, but her thin, delicate face 
had turned white, and her eyes were mere 
malignant slits as she faced her enemy. 

“Now, I must go and tell the others, 
and write a good-by to the dear Admiral, 
and another to Molly Spencer — how 
smoothly that runs, doesn’t it?” Mrs. 
Kirk went on almost girlishly ; chuckling 
softly to herself, as she strode down the 
hall: 

“ I do wish Joe could have seen that ! ” 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


\ 


♦ 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


I 

“There’s a blissful finality about it — it 
fits a man like his coffin ! ” he had exclaimed, 
as he threw himself into it with a long groan 
of pleasure, the day he came home from his 
last cruise. She remembered so well how 
she had stood before him laughing; and 
then he had reached forward and caught her 
dress and drawn her down on the curving 
arm beside him, and they had sat with their 
two gray heads together looking in the 
fire. 

Six weeks afterward she had come home 
late one afternoon and found him sitting in 
it, alone, in the dark — dead. Heart failure, 
they told her, when she could be told any- 
thing. 

It was a Morris chair, deep and low, full 
of enervating angles like an old friendship; 
and with a wealth of adjustable seductions in 
63 


64 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


reserve for the initiated. The brown plush 
cushioning was worn suggestively into a per- 
sonality of its own — large, slothful, mascu- 
line. Women with their tentative birdlike 
ways never thought of even sitting in it; 
men, only when able to outmanoeuvre Mrs. 
Channing, for one of her few irrationalities 
was that the Commodore’s chair should be 
neither moved nor occupied. 

One December evening, after four years 
of widowhood, she was sitting in her usual 
place opposite it before the fire in her apart- 
ment in New York, watching her niece, who, 
in a voluble rage, raced up and down the 
little room, stumbling each time over a foot- 
stool in her path. 

“ Not one single letter for months but has 
something about that Patti son woman this, 
and that Pattison woman that, and that 
Pattison woman the other thing — not one! ” 

“When one considers the great talent 
t men have for silence — ” began Mrs. 
Channing, soothingly, but Mrs. Frith was 
in no mood for her aunt’s well-known sen- 
tentiousness, and she broke in crossly: 

“ He’s crazy about her, that’s all — per- 
fectly crazy. Why, listen to this, it came 
to-day. ’ ’ 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 65 


Mrs. Frith jerked a letter out of her 
pocket, struck the pages open savagely, and 
read aloud : 

“ *1 have an idea that they are just your 
style, and I wish you’d get one before I re- 
turn. I mean those big black hats with 
plumes sticking out sixty ways for Sunday. 
She’ — she, Aunt Eleanor, mark that! — - 
‘had on one yesterday at tiffin, the first I’ve 
seen. Of course I refer to Mrs. Pattison, 
because, as I told you, she’s the only woman 
in Asia who really has any clothes. She 
says it’s a positive joy to dress for my artistic 
eye, for Captain Pattison would never know 
whether she had on her wedding gown or 
a Navajo blanket.’ Such a horrid, vulgar, 
intimate thing to say to him — it just tells the 
whole story!” and Mrs. Frith resumed her 
restless pacing, striking her hands together 
excitedly again and again. 

“ Peggy, would you mind putting that 
stool out of your path?” pleaded Mrs. 
Channing, in her gentlest tone, but the 
other did not even hear her. 

“When Tom’s with me of course he’s 
good to me, but when he isn’t he’s good 
to someone else,” went on the young 
woman, lucidly; “and all I claim is this: 


66 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


that if my husband remembers anything 
about me at all, he must remember my 
jealous disposition. I can’t help it any 
more than I can the shape of my nose — 
and to play with me in this way ! He’s 
laughed at it often enough, dear knows.” 

“ It’s one of those things in life like 
seasickness, toothache, and — ” murmured 
Mrs. Channing, but Peggy broke in hastily : 

“ Why, Aunt Eleanor, when we were first 
married, if he gave his seat in the street- 
car to any woman but a toothless hag, I 
used to feel myself get stiff and frozen, 
and I wouldn’t — actually couldn’t — speak 
to him for hours afterward. And the first 
time he took the opera-glasses from me to 
look at a ballet I just escaped a congestive 
chill, I did indeed, I was in bed for days. 
Of course I’m better now — I mean of the — 
well, the whole thing, but the germ is still 
there, alive, and he’d better beware ! ” 

Mrs. Channing’s hand was covering a 
quivering mouth, but her eyes still strug- 
gled to meet the demands of the tragic 
confession. 

“And he’s forgotten it all, or else he 
doesn’t care any more; and we used to be 
so happy before this wretched cruise — and 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


67 


now we have got all twisted up with — with 
picture hats and things! ” wailed Mrs. Frith, 
suddenly swooping down on her aunt, 
falling on the guanaco rug at her feet and 
burying her head in her lap. 

“ I know just what you are thinking of 
me — but I haven’t eaten nor slept, imagining 
things, for weeks,” whimpered Peggy, 
apologetically. 

“Yes, dear, I quite understand, and I’m 
glad you came to me,” said the older 
woman, quietly, as she stroked the tumbled 
head on her knee. There was a long silence, 
and when Mrs. Channing next spoke her 
voice had a tone in it that her niece rec- 
ognized with a shiver. 

“ Marriage, Peggy dear, is an art — I 
came near saying a manufacture. So many 
women sit down to matrimony as a child 
does to the piano, expecting perfect melody 
to run out from under its pudgy fingers. 
Some don’t get beyond the first discordant 
crash, and it all ends there; and some get 
as far as a cheap waltz or two ; and now 
and then one reaches the realms of — well, 
music;” the widow looked in the fire 
dreamily and her big soft eyes clouded 


over. 


68 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


“ And I, Aunt Eleanor? ours is a sort of 
a two-step, isn’t it?” came in subdued 
tones from the rug. 

“ Two-step ! I’ve no patience with you — 
you don’t even know your scales, my Peg- 
gy*” 

Mrs. Frith assumed a more comfortable 
position. Her aunt had mounted her 
tallest and most muscular steed from her 
stable of hobbies — one that had both wind 
and bottom, as none knew better than she. 

“ A man, a poor honest blundering man, 
in an irresponsible mood commits the ethical 
indiscretion of swearing to love one woman 
for life. A stupendously fatuous thing on 
the face of it, an impossible thing without 
the assistance of all the brains, all the arts, 
all the earnest effort that the wife is capable 
of — and not one day’s rest, Peggy Frith, 
remember that ! ” 

“Yes, but the husband himself, Aunty? ” 

“I’m talking facts, not theories; I’m 
talking policy, not piety. It’s the woman 
who cares in this little matter of marriage, 
not the man. Right round the world, my 
child, the man has the recourse of his 
hat and the bang of the front door. To 
many women, to be sure, the later in- 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 69 

evitable indifference comes as a rest — but 
you, yes and I, we care tremendously and 
we should be willing to work for happiness 
— for I was like that always — just like 
that,” and the low voice ceased for a 
moment. 

“Now take Tom, dear old gentle peace- 

loving Tom ’ * 

“Yes, it’s exactly that ” 

“Peace-loving Tom,” repeated Mrs. 
Channing, forcefully, “I think he’s had 
a pretty hard time with you myself, first and 
last. You have not come within a thou- 
sand transmigrations of his ideal of you. 
You’ve kept straight on in the bee-line of 
your girl’s life, with scarcely a concession 
to your wifehood. He loves music — and 
you’ve about given it up; he loves dress — 
and you’re generally a sight to see, Peggy 
dear ; he loves flowers and color and warmth 
and grace — and your little home is as the 

upholsterer left it ; he loves ’ ’ 

“Pretty women,” snapped Mrs. Frith, 
who was now sitting erect, dry-eyed and 
alert. 

“To be sure, or where would you have 
come in, young lady ? What easier task 
could you demand ? Suppose all the 


7o 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


positives of his nature were negative, would 
you be any better off? ” 

“I don’t believe I know what you are 
talking about,” came plaintively from the 
rug. Mrs. Channing leaned back wearily 
with closed eyes. Her niece sat looking 
up at the quiet face, noting its strength, 
balance, and peace; and that air of simple 
elegance in dress and bearing that was so 
characteristic of her. A silence followed 
during which a realization of the meaning 
of the older woman’s words began slowly to 
dawn upon Mrs. Frith. Their reverie was 
disturbed finally by Peggy’s maid, who ap- 
peared from the flat above, bearing a man’s 
visiting card. 

“You’re surely not going up, you’re not 
fit to be seen,” remonstrated Mrs. Channing 
as the other struggled to her feet. 

“He’s going to run over 4 Siegfried ’ for 
me. His sister has a box-party next week.” 

“He?” inquired her aunt, softly, eying 
the fire. 

“ Oh, Mr. Quincy,” replied Mrs. Frith, 
flushing a little; “he was on Tom’s ship 
and he asked him to look me up when he 
was ordered to the Brooklyn Yard. He’s 
very clever, and well-bred, and ” 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 71 

“ Yes, I know him very well indeed, and 
his sister too,” was all Mrs. Channing said, 
quite gravely. Then she added, with a 
smile : 

“ All I have to say, Peggy, is that if you 
see him with your head looking, as it does, 
like a chrysanthemum in a typhoon, I con- 
sider it much more * horrid, vulgar, and 
intimate’ than certain references to Navajo 
blankets out in Shanghai.” 

Peggy ran away laughing, giving her final 
headlong plunge over the stool as she went. 

The widow arose, pushed the offending 
footstool into its place, turned over the corner 
of the rug, and then wandered to the win- 
dow and stood looking out at the capering 
shadows on the sidewalk. 

“ I cannot lead her life for her. My rest 
is all I have left. I shall not go into it — 
I’m determined on that,” she said aloud. A 
moment later she turned away, took up a 
book and settled herself into the Commo- 
dore’s chair. But presently the book was 
lowered, she leaned her head back, and her 
expression changed and softened. Rubbing 
her hands caressingly up and down the old 
brown cushions, finally she whispered : 

“ Ah, well, that’s true, we were once so 


72 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


happy, so happy ! And that poor foolish 
child may miss it altogether.” 

She could faintly hear the piano above, 
and now and then a man’s voice singing, 
and then long silences between. The tiny 
travelling -clock on the mantel struck the 
half hour, and then the hour, and then 
Mrs. Channing remarked, patting the chair 
with each word : 

“I’ve got it! I’ll break up this danger- 
ous ‘ Siegfried’ business; I’ll give her some- 
thing else to think about, and as for Tom 
Frith, we’ll simply play with him.” 


II 

“Bring me your latest photograph,” 
commanded the Commodore’s widow the 
next morning in Mrs. Frith’s bedroom. 
Continuing as she sat looking at the pecul- 
iarly malignant presentment of her niece pres- 
ently placed in her hand : “To say that I am 
surprised at this would be the grossest flattery, 
for it’s just about what I supposed it would 
be. So that is what you expected the matri- 
monial spark to be fanned with for two whole 
years ! Go at once and fish out one of your 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


73 


old evening dresses and put it on, and have 
you any lace — deep?” she asked, almost 
fiercely. 

“ What under the sun ” murmured 

the other in a pleased way, as she rose to 
obey. In five minutes Mrs. Frith sat before 
her dressing-table with a pile of lace in her 
lap, and Mrs. Channing stood over her 
flourishing a pair of glistening shears. ‘ ‘ Now, 
may I chop into this as I choose? ’ ’ she asked. 
Peggy screamed. 

‘ 4 Heavens, girl, not the lace, of course ! ’ * 
cried Aunt Eleanor, very indignantly. “I 
mean this high-principled thing you call a 
ball-dress.” 

“Of course, anything you like, only, 
aunty, would you mind telling me what 
you’re going to do to me?” was meekly 
asked. 

In absorbed silence the older woman cut 
a sweeping curve around the shoulders of the 
half-high bodice Mrs. Frith had donned, and 
not until this feat was accomplished did she 
make any response. 

“Now, Peg, look in the glass and tell me 
what you see.” 

“ A horrid, bad-tempered, dark, skinny 
gipsy of a thing sitting in a chair, and behind 


74 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


her a very lovely gray-haired woman, with 
the head and air queens ought to have and 
don’t, and ” 

“ You see nothing of the sort! You see 
a beautiful subject badly handled, and an 
ordinary subject very well handled indeed, 
if I do say it myself. But it’s the handling 
that tells in the long run, I find. I’m a great 
believer in suggestion; a woman must be 
more or less in love with herself before she 
can compel ” 

“ Yes, but please, aunty, I’d rather go to 
a hospital at once for any necessary hand- 
ling,” broke in Mrs. Frith, hurriedly, glaring 
at the waving scissors, with a view to stem- 
ming the didactic flow. 

“I’m going to do this, Margaret; I’m 
going to introduce you to your husband’s 
very pretty wife. Why, for years my fingers 
have ached to get at you and your wasted 
beauty — utterly wasted. Then when we 
get the right effect, we’ll perpetuate it on 
paper.” 

Mrs. Frith began to be extremely inter- 
ested. 

“ Now some flowers there and it’s done,” 
exclaimed Mrs. Channing finally, standing 
back and studying the whole critically; 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


75 

“we’ll stop at the florist’s on the way — 
what’s his favorite flower, by the bye ? ” 

For a moment there was no answer, and 
then : 

“ I haven’t the dimmest notion.” 

“You haven’t the dimmest — this is 
nothing short of awful! Why, Tom is the 
most sentimental of men, in his shy, mannish 
way — so many men are — and women, gen- 
eration after generation, throw away one of 
their strongest cards in the game that’s al- 
ways going on between ” 

“ Poppies! I’m sure it’s poppies, well — 
I think it’s poppies,” Mrs. Frith ended, 
rather weakly. 

“ Pudgy fingers and scales, Peggy,” cried 
Mrs. Channing, quite sharply for her. 

Mrs. Frith’s eyes were upon the mirror. 

“I look like — what is it? Who is it? 
Why, Aunt Eleanor, you’ve made me look 
exactly like that dreadful French creature — 
what’s her name?” 

“ Well?” challenged the widow; “almost 
all beautiful ideas come from bad sources — 
pick your pond-lily short, and let the muddy 
roots alone,” so spake the oracle, and Peggy 
listened helplessly. 

“ Now, I’ll telephone for a cab, and we’ll 


76 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


get on our things, and go to a certain pho- 
tographer, whose spirit I broke years and 
years ago.” 

When they left his studio two hours 
later, there were eleven views of Mrs. 
Frith in soak in the dark-room, and the 
photographer looked sodden and white with 
repressed rage, a mood he purposed to pass 
on to his smirking assistant as soon as op- 
portunity offered. 

“ Now, I want you to begin at once a 
mild flirtation with — well, say Mr. Quincy,” 
was the widow’s next announcement, as 
they once more settled themselves in the 
cab. 

“Aunt Eleanor Channing ! ’ ’ Peggy gasped, 
turning squarely in her seat, with blazing 
cheeks. " For an instant the cab seemed 
full of electric currents. 

“ Oh ! I mean on paper, to your husband, 
of course. We’ll work it out together. 
It’s unquestionably naughty, but then, for 
that matter, so’s the Pattison woman,” 
replied Mrs. Channing, easily. 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


77 


III 

Late one Saturday afternoon the two 
women separated in the elevator, on Mrs. 
Channing’s floor. The hall was dark and 
the widow fumbled a little with her latch- 
key on opening her door. She stepped in 
to the warmth and shaded brightness with- 
in, and moved toward the drawing-room. 
As she gently drew aside the portieres she 
caught the glint of silver hair against the 
background of the Commodore’s chair, and 
saw a large hand resting on the arm near- 
est her. After the first startled look, she 
staggered back and the curtains fell noise- 
lessly together. She slid into a chair in a 
blind sort of a way, and sat leaning heavily 
against the wall, thinking shudderingly of 
that other day when she had come home in 
just this way — it was all so terribly alike, 
even to that large white hand resting there. 
The maid entered and Mrs. Channing roused 
herself, and placing her fingers on her lips, 
beckoned. Into the ear stooped to her, 
she whispered : 

“ Get me a glass of sherry, quietly, and 
help me to my room; I’m a little faint.” 


78 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


“Well, Admiral, this is a delightful sur- 
prise ! I had no idea the squadron was 
in,” she exclaimed a few minutes later, 
entering and shaking hands cordially with 
the tall, slight, and very handsome man in 
evening dress who arose to greet her from 
the Commodore’s chair. 

“I’ve come to dinner, Mrs. Channing,” 
he announced with a pretence of courage, 
denied by very pleading blue eyes. 

‘ ‘ I should like to see you escape ! But 
it’ll be potluck, remember.” 

“ If I never had to face anything worse 
than Mrs. Channing’s potluck! ” he apos- 
trophized the chandelier. 

Laughingly she was pushing forward 
ostentatiously another easy-chair, but he 
sank back into the Commodore’s with a 
sigh of such entire comfort that her heart 
for once relented. 

“It’s heaven, that’s what it is,” he 
said, watching her unpin and fold her veil, 
and draw off her gloves — those little com- 
monplaces that become a beautiful mystery 
to loving eyes. 

“We sailors long so for just this: a 
lamp, an open fire, an easy-chair, pretty 
things about, and a woman, to be good to 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


79 


us — did you know?” (Did she know!) 
“ And later you’ll play my Scotch melodies 
for me ? Yes, I knew you would — it’s 
heaven itself, all this — for me.” 

“The lonesomeness of your life I quite 
understand,” she said, quickly. 

“That’s just it. Strip it of its plumage 
of tradition, it’s nothing more than solitary 
confinement — my life afloat on the flag-ship. 
Eating alone, sitting alone, walking alone — 
always alone, up and down, caged, watched, 
guarded by conventional laws less easily 
broken than iron bars — but I’m keeping 
you.” She had risen and stood looking 
down at him smiling, as he warmed up to 
his professional privilege of growling. He 
struggled up out of the chair’s depth, as she 
turned to leave him, saying : 

“ I’m afraid I shall be some little time, 
as I’ve just come in from the matinee. 
Here’s an evening paper and some mag- 
azines, and ” 

“I shall just sit and think of you, with 
your permission,” he interrupted, bowing 
with the slow elaborateness of his generation. 

“ Time seems to do nothing for you, sir,” 
and she shook her head reprovingly. 

“ Time has succeeded in doing what I 


8o 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


have failed to do — it has # forgotten you, 
madam,” and they parted with a laugh. 

“Oh, by the way, Mrs. Channing,” he 
called after her, “you’ll find a box of 
flowers on the hat-rack. I don’t know 
what’s in it. I just told the fellow to put 
together a lot of things that smell nice.” 

“ How very kind of you,” came back the 
answer, the sweetness of her voice lingering 
in the room like a perfume. 

A quarter of an hour later she rejoined 
him ; dinner was announced with a rattle 
of wooden curtain rings, and offering his 
arm, he went in with her. 

The addition of a perfect salad, a bottle 
of claret, the temperature of which the 
Admiral declared set her apart from among 
her sex; all his flowers arranged on the 
little round table ; and Mrs. Channing her- 
self in a black filmy half-toilet, and Admiral 
Crofton felt as if he were dining with a 
princess royal. 

Afterward she left him with his cigar, 
and went to the piano and played all the 
foolish, tender little things he liked so much. 
He sat alone and listened and dreamed, 
leaning forward on one arm and staring at 
nothing, until his cigar went out. After 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


81 


awhile he suddenly tossed it aside, arose and 
walked rapidly into the drawing-room. 

She turned her head smilingly toward 
him, her hands still fingering the keys. 
When she saw his face she gave a slight 
start. Standing directly behind her, he 
said, abruptly: 

“ Why can’t it be like this always? ” 

“Ah, Admiral, after your promise,” she 
answered, sadly. 

* ‘ I know, I know — I understand every- 
thing. I know all you’d say. But — if I 
could only make you realize what it is to 
have had one strong wish through all these 
years — I cannot let it go so lightly, I can- 
not. I asked too much before — I come 
humbly now. I’ll take ‘potluck’ gladly, 
Eleanor, forever and aye. Just to be like 
this to-night, on and on through the quiet 
years left us. Don’t reproach me for beg- 
ging once more for my happiness, and the 
deep peace and rest it would mean to me. 
I think I recognize now the sacrifice it 
might be on your part — but isn’t it, after 
all, sacrificing an honest living fact to a mere 
idea ? And then I have heard you say that 
whenever you women saw a door labelled 
‘ sacrifice,’ two things always happened — 


82 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


you were bound to go through that door, 
and you were bound to find happiness be- 
yond. Yes, you did — just those words.” 
She could not help smiling. It was not 
the first time one of her flock of aphorisms 
had flown back to the home-perch. She 
swung slowly around on the stool toward 
him, and there was a suggestion of yield- 
ing in the whole graceful figure. 

As no response had come from her, he 
turned quickly away, and threw himself 
heavily down into the interdicted arm- 
chair. 

She instantly felt the old resentment, the 
old stricture in the throat, the old coldness 
at the heart. 

She arose and closed the piano very 
gently, and as the Admiral left the room a 
moment later, she stood watching him, with 
one of her arms thrown almost defiantly 
along the back of the Commodore’s chair. 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 83 


IV 

Again Mrs. Frith burst into her aunt’s 
apartment with a letter, and again she found 
Mrs. Channing reading by the fireside ; but 
this time Mrs. Frith — the revolutionized 
Mrs. Frith, a joy to the eye — was laughing 
and flushed with triumph. To be sure she 
stumbled over a teapoy, the fundamentals 
of her character being as yet untouched. 

“ Listen, listen, listen to this, you wonder- 
ful woman; ‘Your photograph came yester- 
day, and I can hardly take my eyes away 
from it long enough to write you. There 
was some sort of a social caper yesterday 
afternoon on the Russian flag-ship lying 
here, but I fibbed brazenly out of the whole 
thing, and sat in front of you propped up 
on my desk; and I smoked two straight 
Manilas, only moving for the matches. I 
had the mid-watch, last night, and I sup- 
pose you’ll laugh when I confess that you 
stood it with me, buttoned up in my breast 
pocket ; and I could actually feel a little 
hand resting on my arm and the sweep of 
skirts beside me ; and I wouldn’t look lest 
it should vanish and I be left tramping the 


8 4 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


deck alone under the stars. It has brought 
you to me so vividly. I wonder if you 
even dream, little wife, how this has pleased 
me. You’ve found your artistic key at last. 
How is it ? What is it ? I wish to heaven 
these months were over that still gape be- 
tween us ; I want to see for myself this 
wonderful bursting of the chrysalis. There’s 
something about it all that I don’t quite 
get at. By the bye, Peggy, whose idea 
were the poppies ? Of all things ! They 
looked intentional somehow. These con- 
founded little notes you’ve been honoring 
me with recently haven’t mentioned that 
fellow Quincy of late. Do you ever see 
him? He’s an awful donkey about most 
things, Quincy, but of course if he amuses 
you, for goodness’ sake don’t fancy I object 
in the least. I wonder if he still has his old 
struggle with his cuffs — ridiculous way he 
had ’ — and so forth, and so forth — there, 
aunty, isn’t that delicious? Just as jealous ! 
and not one syllable about that Pattison 
thing.” Peggy seized upon Mrs. Channing 
and fairly shook her with delight. 

“ Now, I suppose you’re going straightway 
to pour yourself out over two or three hun- 
dred pages in reply,” said Mrs. Channing, 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 85 

severely, when their felicitations were over. 
The dark head drooped. 

“ I — I’ve just posted it,” said the young 
wife, sheepishly. 

“ Peggy ! Why, that letter in your hand 
is only the first curtain in our comedietta ; 
you’ll ruin everything.” 

“ You ought to write a book, aunt.” 

“So I’ve been told,” was the serene 
reply. The weeks flew by. The two women 
saw each other daily. Mrs. Frith waxed 
hourly in grace, beauty, and buoyancy ; 
busy with her music, in recasting her hither- 
to purposeless wardrobe, in trying new effects 
in her erstwhile unhomelike home and other- 
wise continuing her post-graduate course in 
conjugal chemistry under Mrs. Channing’s 
expert tuition. 

It would have been extremely difficult to 
convince Mr. Quincy of the fact that he 
had become a mere innoxious lay figure, 
over which the two women threw the drap- 
ery of their imaginations for the desired 
dramatic effect upon the absent Tom, through 
the medium of letters which became more 
and more artistic as time passed. Then 
came the day tingling with the great event 
of Lieutenant Frith’s return from China. 


86 


THE COMMODORE’S CHAIR 


The widow sat alone in the Commodore’s 
chair. She heard a man’s deep- toned voice, 
breathing of storm-swept decks, talking to 
the janitor below ; then the burr of the 
elevator as it passed her floor. She heard 
Peggy spring to her feet, and her quick, ex- 
cited step across the floor above; a door 
close heavily and then silence. 

Mrs. Channing’s hands passed with a 
tremulous tenderness over the old faded 
cushions ; then one hand went nervously to 
her lips. She leaned her head back, and 
from between closed eyelids, two tears fell 
with a little flash in the firelight. 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 






1 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 

Two bells had just struck on the U. S. 
S. Essex, when the band from the flag- 
ship slid into a restful waltz off the reefs of 
a more than ordinarily jagged prelude. The 
two long lines of strollers began to break up 
into many spirals. The English spun about 
like dervishes, less their ecstasy ; the Ameri- 
cans achieved their standard of speed not 
without a certain lawless grace; the Ger- 
mans galloped tumultuously to their own 
contentment ; the Russian officers, from the 
Olga, anchored a few rods away, gave a 
preliminary stamp and then swooped across 
the deck in death-dealing straight lines ; the 
tiny Japanese meandered with painstaking, 
joyless care, conscious of the hectic inter- 
est of the Chinese and Korean attaches, to 
whom the whole affair was a fascinating 
orgy. Above and about all these poten- 
tialities the flags of all nations waved a lazy 
toleration. 

Mrs. Furze glanced about restlessly. She 
89 


90 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


was very tall, very meagre, and frankly 
middle-aged, but she could dance, and well, 
and clung savagely to the fact. Finally 
she arose slowly and began to glide about 
alone. 

“Til dance with my glorious past,” she 
said sadly, with a view to the laugh that 
followed. The group about her stood look- 
ing on with that comfortable, good-natured 
feeling born of irresponsibility. 

“ Give me part of this, will you ? ” asked 
fat little Cadet Cutler, with his usual cau- 
tion, waltzing up to her. Neither his voice 
nor extended swaying arms conveyed aught 
but an insolent appreciation of his own age 
and of hers. He had quite a little to learn, 
but it was nicely balanced by the more she 
had had to unlearn. 

“ Give my love to your mother when you 
write,” was her answer, with a grimness all 
her own, and straightway she fell into his 
arms and they whirled off together. 

“I’m as tired of that woman as if she’d 
been my wife forty years,” muttered the 
doctor softly in an ear he was sure of, 
following the absurd-looking couple with 
weary eyes ; “ the Furzes are my fate, in- 
evitable, unescapable. This is my third 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 91 


cruise with them ; I’ve broken up my whole 
naval career trying to get away from them. 
But we always get the same ship, Furze 
and I, and — well, here she was, ahead of 
the Essex, bobbing around in a sampan, 
waiting for the gangway, as usual. She 
boarded us and stayed to breakfast — she 
always does. And she had on that same 
old rococo bonnet of hers — it seemed to me 
I could have stood it better if it hadn’t 
been for that ; I know all her rigs, known 
’em for years. She tells us everything, 
anyhow ; she has a hideous notion that we 
like it. You ought to see that Naval 
Register of hers — full of her own mystery 
of symbols. She has interrogation marks 
standing a sort of death-watch over half 
the poor wretches ahead of her husband on 
the list. And then you should hear her 
talk ‘ line and staff ’ with the youngsters 
when she comes out and spends the live- 
long day in the wardroom when Furze is 
on duty. She’s here, there, and everywhere ; 
a man is not safe a minute on sea or land. 
She has the mental, moral, and physical 
flutter of a humming-bird — I wish to heaven 
she’d ever light.” 

Back and forth, in and out among the 


92 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


other dancers, Mrs. Furze and her little 
partner wove their contented way. There 
was a probable sixteen years between them, 
and a palpable eight inches, yet each alike 
covertly watched the ripple of international 
comment created by their academy step as 
they swept past the shore of onlookers, and 
each alike assumed its admiration. She had 
fed him often and well during his novitiate, 
and that her dancing-step suited him, he felt 
to be one of those small, nice things that do 
happen now and again in a teasing world. 

They flew past guns reduced to perches 
for cooing pairs ; past the draped arm-chest 
throning a mouse-like Japanese lady of an 
uncomfortably exalted rank, who strove to 
remember not to be too civil to the men 
presented to her — who in turn tried to for- 
get their geisha Japanese; past Admiral 
Sully, blighted into a sullen dignity by the 
unwonted presence of his wife, who had 
just arrived on the station (he had always 
called her ‘ ‘ mother, * ’ and preferred to 
think of her in that capacity). Then on 
past solid ranks of superfluous men from 
Yokohama and Tokio, who exchanged in 
several languages that time-worn sneer anent 
women and the button of brass. 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 93 


“Take me past Hadden” — Mrs. Furze 
scorned titles and prefixes — “I want to get 
a good look at him,” she whispered into 
Cutler’s conveniently helpless ear. He 
forthwith steered for the rail, where a white- 
faced man had leaned for an hour, motion- 
less and alone. There was no need to fol- 
low his sullen eyes to know upon what they 
fed their misery — all that small world knew 
by heart the story of the summer just passed. 

“It’s coming to a finish, you’ll see,” was 
Mrs. Furze’s verdict. 

“ Quarrelled, you think? ” panted Cutler. 

“Oh, you men!” — Cutler liked that 
and extended his partner’s dancing lease. 
“Such primitive ideas ! — she’s had Austria 
in cold storage for a week ; Hadden’s played 
his last stake, and as he’s never been happy 
in the affair anyhow, there you are.” 

“ Fiddlesticks,” said the cadet, manfully. 

Mrs. Furze smiled broadly into space 
over his head, and continued, smoothly : 

“ I’ve heard he’s been like this ever since 
the last American mail. I never knew Miss 
Foster, but I wrote a month or so ago to a 
sort of cousin of hers in Texas, and told 
her something about the life out here, and 
I’ve been wondering ” 


94 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


“ Ha,” commented Cutler, briefly, not for 
lack of interest, but lack of breath. 

“ One more round,” he wheezed, having 
waited a decent time for the signal to come 
from her. 

“ Heavens, boy ! Are you tired already? 
Why, I’ve just got my second wind.” It 
was generally understood throughout the ser- 
vice that when Mrs. Furze’s lungs reached 
this stage of smooth working, every man had 
the inalienable right to retire — while he 
could. An obstinate look came into the 
cadet’s smooth face, and he silently headed 
for the Admiral’s wife. Mrs. Furze was 
forced into an anchorage beside her, and 
Cutler made his escape. 

“ Do you know, I’ve danced every blessed 
one but these two-step things ? ’ ’ exclaimed 
Mrs. Sully, her round fresh face flushed 
and alive with smiles; her fat, little well- 
gloved hand trembling as she waved a vig- 
orous fan. 

“ I, a grandmother twice over, if you 
please. Oh, I saw the Admiral laughing 
at me, and I know just what he’ll write 
the girls; but all the same, I’m determined 
to have this one nice, ridiculous time on his 
last cruise. I’ve been tied hand and foot, 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 95 


Mrs. Furze, twenty-three years. He galli- 
vanting all over creation, meeting kings and 
queens, and I many and many a time with- 
out a cook. He needn’t try to laugh me 
out of it, for when he’s retired — now, what 
do you suppose that man expects to do when 
he retires?” 

“ Sheep in Dakota,” suggested her com- 
panion, in her driest tone. 

“ Ducks, my dear, ducks on Long Island. 

When I think of all I’ve missed ” Mrs. 

Sully added, thoughtfully. Mrs. Furze, who 
knew how very little the Admiral had missed, 
gave an inward chuckle ; and it was a con- 
tinuation of her own thought that made her 
say : 

“Well, each of us naval women must 
decide for herself. You can paddle about 
and know an awful lot, or you can stay at 
home and believe an awful lot” — adding 
hurriedly, as Mrs. Sully turned innocent, 
inquiring eyes upon her, “ I mean Miss 
Hull and all that sort of thing.” 

The music had stopped and Miss Hull, 
the beautiful, the begossiped, was strolling 
past them. She was in filmy lilac that day, 
unrelieved — with her usual insistence on 
the entierement — save by dark-purple pan- 


96 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


sies wreathing the curving hat that rested 
on her dark head. The phenomenon of 
her father’s presence beside her may have 
accounted for her uneasy, unsmiling face. 
Captain Hull, commanding the Essex, 
was a large, loosely built man, whose face 
seemed painfully moved and flushed as he 
lounged past. His daughter had reasons 
of her own for considering the moment 
propitious, and she bowed smilingly to the 
Admiral’s wife, elaborately excluding Mrs. 
Furze. 

Mrs. Sully, with the gentlest heart in the 
world, and with no idea of its tragic signifi- 
cance, stared back without bowing. 

“Oh! I didn’t mean to do that,” she 
instantly exclaimed ; “I was so absorbed in 
what you were saying, and I’ve been out of 
it all so long my social machinery is dread- 
fully rusty. I’ll speak to her at once. I 
never cut anybody. I never can judge.” 
She arose as she spoke. As Mrs. Sully went 
toward them, the Captain turned abruptly 
on his heel and left his daughter standing 
alone, and she walked quickly away. 

“She’s used to it, you needn’t bother,” 
said Mrs. Furze, comfortably, when the older 
woman returned. 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 97 


“Why, Mrs. Furze!” ejaculated Mrs. 
Sully, open-eyed. 

“ Sit down and I’ll tell you.” The other’s 
hard voice and manner were almost pleasant 
as she continued : “I mean that sooner or 
later it’ll come to that. One by one the 
women drop her. Of course the doctor 
says it’s because none of us feel safe ; well, 
we don’t for that matter, but that isn’t all. 
Wherever she goes, after awhile a sort of 
tidal wave of gossip follows her into every 
port, and when it recedes, there’s a track 
of bleaching bones left.” 

“ Good gracious! ” cried little Mrs. Sully, 
ruffling like a pigeon in a following wind. 
Mrs. Furze certainly had the full courage of 
her metaphors. 

“ I could tell you things — I mean awful 
things, breaking up of whole families and 
all that — but I’ll stick to the log of this 
cruise. It’s only vanity, at least nowa- 
days, but, as the doctor says, ‘ vanity is as 
good a vice as any other to become the 
centre of considerable social disturbance,’ 
and opium couldn’t have made a greater 
slave of her. She simply can’t live without 
one of these five-acts-and-six-peacock-blue- 
tableau affairs going on about her. 


98 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


“ It was Rice, the navigator of the Essex, 
last spring in Shanghai. He thought she 
was engaged to him, he really did ! and 
ever since he’s been drinking himself into 
a general court-martial, and he’ll get there 
pretty soon. The Captain will not dare 
ignore it much longer — even if Rice’s 
brother is the senior Senator from Captain 
Hull’s State, and his private pet particular 
‘pull.’ Then when we all came over to 
Japan, her basilisk eye fell upon Hadden, 
whose stateroom had been reeking for years 
with pictures of his fiancee, Miss Foster of 
Baltimore. The whole situation contained 
the spice Miss Hull’s weary taste requires. 
The funny part of it is that the wardroom 
persists in taking her seriously, and they 
hold poor Van Buren Hadden responsible 
for Rice’s going to smash. You know 
there’s a queer little social code in the Navy, 
almost a Turkish respect for the other fel- 
low’s harem.” 

Mrs. Sully stirred uneasily, and the other 
hastened on : 

“So one morning three months ago, she 
puts on a dream of a gown — pink from top 
to toe — one of those devilish dresses. I 
mean,” as the older woman started — “oh, 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 99 

you know what I mean. It was the day 
of the Admiral’s picnic at Kamakura ; one 
of those long, warm, intimate sort of days. 
Well, she focused on him — I forgot to say 
Hadden was one of the men. There were 
thirteen to five women, you’ll see for your- 
self by and by ; and when Miss Hull 
focuses, good-by to the man and his sweet- 
heart, or wife, or any other female relation 
who happens to believe in him. The result 
is over there against the rail, the officer 
Miss Hull has just joined — stark crazy, you 
know. The story is Miss Foster broke with 
him last American mail.” 

“But her father in all this?” protested 
Mrs. Sully. 

“ Oh, she inherited enough money from 
her mother to be entirely independent of 
him, and she chooses to skip about the 
world after his ships — and the life that 
helpless man leads ! He’s one of those 
blind, good-natured, heavenly masculine re- 
lations such women always do manage to 
achieve somehow. But do you know, Mrs. 
Sully, it’s my opinion he has some myste- 
rious hold on that girl and uses it in big 
emergencies, when his whole ship is at 
daggers drawn. ” 


ioo FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


“Something in her life, it may be, that 
has left the ground stripped bare, and hard 
as a rock,” gently suggested Mrs. Sully, 
whose kind heart would have found a civil 
word for Satan himself, if only about the 
advantage of hoofs in actively volcanic 
countries. 

“Possible,” snapped Mrs. Furze. “I 
can’t quite make it out, but I’m on the 
right track and I’ll get there yet, I’ll wager. 
As I said before, Mrs. Sully, you can stop 
at home and believe an awful lot, or you can 
follow the ship and see an awful lot. I like 
the seeing myself.” 

“I don’t believe I do,” said the other, 
coldly, the color failing out of her happy 
little face. 

Miss Hull had stood perfectly still an 
instant after her father had turned away. 
When Mrs. Sully had refused recognition of 
his daughter, he had said something to her 
that left her face gray and pinched. She 
looked about half dazed. Her glance fell 
on Lieutenant Hadden. She walked swiftly 
across the deck and up to him. 

The band was playing again, a dashing 
polka with the clink of castanets running 
through it. 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING ioi 


Lieutenant Hadden turned toward Miss 
Hull a face set and smileless, the terrible 
open significance of which had driven her 
half wild all the afternoon. She sought 
instinctively to conceal it by facing him. 

“Van,” she began, angrily, “give me 
your arm, I must speak to you; we’ll walk 
with the rest.” 

“ I can’t, Rose,” he said, heavily; then, 
as she looked her astonishment, he added. 
“ I don’t know why, I simply can’t go into 
all that chatting stream, and be one of 
them.” She moved her head from side to 
side impatiently and exclaimed : 

“ Don’t you see what you are doing — 
have already done for me to-day?” Into 
his eyes, still dull with dreaming, came a 
slow bewilderment; he had not been near 
her. 

“ Is a man ever anything but the veriest 
boy? ” she went on, furiously. “ Could any- 
thing be worse for me than to have you 
stand here hour after hour, staring with 
that look on your face ? And you pretend 
to care ? ’ ’ 

“Ah, Rose,” was all he said, raising 
a protesting hand. Always a self-centred 
man, and deliberate in his mental readjust- 


102 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


ments, he was still completely dominated by 
his own mood, and as for hers — there were so 
many. His eyes wandered over her face and 
he made no answer. She drew in her breath 
sharply. It sometimes happens that we 
stand as miserably helpless before a passion 
to which we have given birth, as a mother 
staring wan-faced through prison-bars. 

“ What is it all about? ” she said, finally; 
“ why didn’t you come to the boat-house 
last night ? I kept dances for you like a 
chit of a school-girl. Where were you ? 
What is it? Or,” she added, slowly, “or 
is it one of your interesting reactions ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, we’ll call it that,” he said, with 
a half smile. “Dear, I’m sorry I’ve both- 
ered you. I never dreamed you’d notice, 
except to inwardly thank me for keeping 
away.” She had pulled off one of her 
gloves and she struck her bare hand with 
it in nervous anger, and looked beyond him 
with distended eyes. The action roused 
him and he said : 

“ It’s not you — it’s not your fault, this 
that’s been troubling me, I mean. It’s life 
— it’s myself — but this is neither the time 
nor the place. I’ll see you to-morrow, after 
quarters.” 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 103 

“This is the time and place,” she re- 
peated, slowly; “you will not see me to- 
morrow, after quarters. That I, forsooth, 
should pay as I have for that ! So it was 
one of your reactions, this grewsome atti- 
tude. Well, it’s your last, Mr. Hadden ; 
this ends it.” 

“I’ll be back for you in a minute, Miss 
Hull; this is ours, remember,” cried a 
merry voice behind her. She turned and 
nodded with a smile. The band gave a 
loud, ornate, preliminary flourish, and in the 
pause that followed, Hadden leaned toward 
her and said, quickly : 

“You dare not do that. It’s all gone into 
the balance, all — my whole life, integrity, 
honor, friendship — Rose, I never told you, 
but none of the mess but Douglas has given 
me a decent word for two months — God, 
woman, can you understand that?” Then 
he stopped short, and began to laugh, in a 
broken sort of way, and added, gently : 

“ My dear girl, why, this is too absurd. 
Both of us going on in this nonsensical fash- 
ion, as if we meant it. I’ll see you in the 
morning. I may come, may I not?” She 
had stood tapping one foot on the deck, 
watching him with half-shut eyes; when 


104 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 

he had finished, she opened them wide and 
looked him full in the face and said: 

“ I meant every word. This is the end, 
here, now.” 

She was thinking far more of her father 
and the future, than of Hadden and the 
past, but he did not know that. 

“Come, Miss Hull, the lines are form- 
ing/’ called out the young officer who had 
before addressed her, advancing to claim 
his dance; adding, stiffly — “ beg pardon,” 
as Hadden instinctively put out a detaining 
hand. 

“Oh, we had come to a full stop, Mr. 
Hadden and I,” laughed Miss Hull. As 
they turned away her glove fell to the deck. 

“Yes, they’ve got up the reel at last. 
It’ll be great, I tell you,” rattled on her 
partner — “ the Admiral’s promised Lady 
Appleby to do his Virginia steps, pigeon- 
wings and all. I wouldn’t miss it ! But 
Mrs. Furze says the great thing will be to 
watch Mrs. Sully. She says the dear little 
old lady is getting onto things fast. What 
do you think that awful Furze woman has 
done now? She declared she had ridden 
on everything but an ostrich, and she had 
danced with everything but a Chinaman, 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 105 


and she was going to do both this cruise. 
So she pounced on the Chinese secretary, 
Mr. Heigh-ho something (she swears she 
met him in Tientsin last winter), and she 
asked him to dance this with her. He 
pretended not to understand her, and dis- 
proved it by disappearing suddenly; she’s 
still hunting.” 

When left alone, Hadden stooped and 
picked up the glove at his feet, with a curi- 
ous, jealous ingathering of his fingers. He 
stood for some time, watching, with unsee- 
ing eyes, the gay scene. Two long lines 
of bobbing, balancing couples, with Mrs. 
Furze on the outskirts dancing down three 
cadets, Cutler not among them. There were 
great shouts of laughter at the mistakes of 
the foreigners, a stamping of feet and a soft 
patter of clapping hands in the oft-repeated 
promenade, followed by the hoarse “ Brava! 
brava! ” of the inflammable Russians, heard 
high above the shrieking music. 

Hadden suddenly started and turned his 
back, leaning on the rail and looking out 
over the quiet bay, and beyond at the distant 
curve of the Kanagawa shore, fast purpling 
in the changing autumn light. 

Mrs. Furze was wrong for once. Miss 


io6 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


Foster had broken her engagement to Lieu- 
tenant Hadden weeks before the Essex’s 
hop, and he remembered being shocked at 
himself, for he scarcely felt it in the sweep 
of the newer passion at its fullest tide. It 
was a letter, however, received two days 
before, from his mother, his shrewd old 
mother, who had both the eyes and the 
claws, as he well knew, of an eagle. He 
knew the letter by heart. 

“Yes, she was married this morning. I 
went to the church. You can see for yourself 
I could not go to the house, although they 
were all very kind — too kind. And she 
married Mr. Herbert after all these years. 
And he almost laughed in my face as he 
went down the aisle with that splendid girl 
on his arm. He meant it for you, of course, 
but although I sat very high and proud, and 
very well dressed you may be sure, my old 
heart has never known such a sense of utter 
defeat and shameful routing. I’m the friend 
of the good, never of the evil, that is in you, 
even if you are my son. It’s not convenient 
for you, I grant, but to-day I think you men 
will find that we — mother, wife, or sweet- 
heart — are no longer clinging, sobbing, to 
broken ideals, and pasting bits together on 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 107 


bended knees. We, too, are touched with 
the bargaining spirit of the age — we want 
that much for that much. And we women, 
the good ones, are the strongest social force 
the world has ever known. Not individually, 
as a corrective medicine here and there, but 
as a whole, shoulder to shoulder, intolerant, 
unsympathetic, narrow as a razor-blade, and 
as sharp. Something of which I said to the 
girl when she came to me with her trouble 
before she wrote you ; and then I kissed the 
pure flower face, and we cried a little to- 
gether, and she went her way. Well, you’ve 
lost her, and to Mr. Herbert.” 

It was that. It was the old feeling aroused 
in him of locked antlers, that had suddenly 
returned and maddened him. The strength 
of habit was in it. Once jarred out of his 
moral syncope, he was terrified to find rush- 
ing back upon him a great wave of love 
and longing for the girl he had lost — lost to 
that one man of them all. Yesterday he 
had gone ashore alone and thrashed all over 
the country, drunk with suffering; to-day he 
was spent, nerveless. 

The Virginia reel w r as at its maddest, the 
music its loudest, the laughter its merriest, 
as he turned slowly, crossed the deck and 


io8 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


went below. As he stepped into the ward- 
room he heard his own name, and then the 
voice of Mr. Douglas, the First Lieutenant, 
saying, quickly: 

“ Keep quiet, Rice. You don’t realize 
what you are saying, man.” Rice was 
sitting at the long table, still laden with the 
debris of the afternoon’s refreshment, and he 
held in his hand a large goblet of punch. 
The doctor and Lieutenant Douglas stood 
near him ; little Cutler was stretched full 
length in a cushioned corner; two Japanese 
wardroom “boys” were softly pattering 
about. Hadden had to pass directly in 
front of the navigator to get to his room; 
there was a hush as he did so. The dull 
rhythm of dancing feet went on above them. 
There was a chair in Hadden’s way, and as 
he put out his hand to move it, from his 
relaxed fingers a long lilac glove slid like a 
snake to the floor. Rice struggled to his 
feet with a look in his face that made the 
two other men spring forward. As he stood 
swaying slightly, the navigator began to 
laugh, then he raised his glass and said, 
thickly: 

“ May all our wives be sweethearts, and 
all our sweethearts wives. ’ ’ 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 109 

Hadden looked slowly about with sad 
eyes seeking a little pity, but even his one 
stanch friend, Douglas, turned away his 
head. 

There was a burst of laughter and applause 
on deck, and then quiet, and the slow 
scraping of loitering feet. Loud voices 
broke sharply into the silence. 

“They’re coming for their wraps!” 
whispered Cutler. 

“ Tell the officer of the deck to have 
the steamer and cutters manned at once,” 
ordered the First Lieutenant. 

At a nod from Douglas the doctor bun- 
dled Rice into his own room, shut the door 
and turned the key on the outside, drawing 
the curtain across with that physician’s 
touch that comes nearest the woman’s 
among men. 

Hadden walked quickly to his room and 
closed the door after him. With hurried 
movements he stooped and was feeling for 
something in the locker at the foot of his 
bunk, when the First Lieutenant’s quiet voice 
behind him startled him to his feet. 

“If you’ll get another glass, Hadden, 
I’ll join you.” The younger man turned 
instantly. His friend stood looking out of 


no FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


the port-hole, arms akimbo, with knuckles 
dug in at the hips. 

“I — it — thank you, Douglas; that’s like 
you. One moment — I’ll get it,” stammered 
Hadden, brokenly, averting his face as he 
went out into the wardroom, thankful for 
even a momentary escape from his friend’s 
eyes. The First Lieutenant sprang instantly 
forward, and reaching down to the locker he 
rapidly got possession of the something his 
insight told him must be there. When 
Hadden re-entered, followed by a burst of 
laughter through the opened door, Douglas 
was buttoning his blouse with hands that 
trembled slightly. 

“ Van, that’s not the solution, my boy,” 
said Douglas, sadly, stepping forward and 
placing his hands on the other’s shoulders. 
The two men faced each other in silence, 
Hadden tall, sinewy, his sallow face made 
up of sensitive perpendicular lines; Douglas 
short, with the chest-measure of a larger man, 
and a square, strong-jawed face, wide between 
the big brown, dog-like eyes. 

“ I can’t see another inch ahead of me — 
I’m done,” cried Hadden, turning away, his 
lips white and quivering with the sudden 
reaction from a desperate purpose. 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING hi 


“For that very reason let me judge for 
you. I can see — trust me, will you?” 

Hadden made no answer, sitting on his 
bunk with back half turned, looking out 
at the bit of flecked sky vouchsafed by the 
narrow port-hole. 

“ Answer me, Van,” persisted his friend. 

“I tell you I’m done,” came doggedly 
from the other. 

The First Lieutenant tossed up his head, 
scenting battle. When he spoke his voice 
was as gentle as a woman’s. 

“ I understand, old fellow. Great suffer- 
ing always shuts out the perspective in one’s 
life. But you must know that things don’t 
go on and on; emotions have their births, 
lives, and deaths with the rest of it. Let me 
be your guide till the darkness lifts — as it 
will, of course; it’s nature’s way. No sec- 
ond ticks off the blackest night but brings 
you nearer the dawn. Give me your hand, 
Hadden.” 

But the only sound was the soft rush of 
the tide past the port-hole. 

After a pause, Douglas continued, quietly: 

“Those prisoners have got to be taken to 
Mare Island on the next Pacific Mail; some 
officer must be detailed to take them over; I 


1 1 2 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


can arrange it easily, if you’ll say the word.” 
Douglas saw that the other was listening, 
but still there was no reply. With a sudden 
rage the First Lieutenant burst out : 

“So it was for this end that you made 
that splendid fight, inch for inch, for your 
own life and mine that day at Samoa ! I 
came to my senses long enough to hear the 
cheer the men gave you — six hundred throats 
strong — when, half dead, you dragged your- 
self and me up the beach within reach of 
ready arms, after that desperate swim. The 
whole lot of us for once stripped down by 
danger to the buff of fine primitive things 
like brute strength and courage. And of 
the thousand-odd souls there, struggling in 
all that fury of sea and air, no body so 
strong, no head so clear, no heart so big 
with pity as yours — you, who set the pace 
for us all that day — and then your mother’s 
letter afterward ! To make a fight for life 
like that, to wish to end it like this, and for 
that contemptible patchouli business in 
there!” jerking his thumb in the direction 
of the wardroom, where the chatter and 
laugh still went on. “I can’t talk about 
it — it makes a whimpering calf of me to 
this day — but, Van, for God’s sake, think a 


FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 113 


minute, and keep your head like the man 
you really are, under all this.” 

There was a second’s silence, then, with 
almost a groan, Hadden suddenly threw out 
his right arm, and their two hands struck 
together in a close grip. 

When Douglas finally .turned away, his 
eyes were full of tears, as he muttered, falter- 
ingly: 

“And — er — Hadden, of course there are 
years of self-respect and happy peace ahead 
of you, you know; and work on sea and 
shore, and somewhere a good woman’s love 
asleep, waiting for you.” 

A moment after the First Lieutenant sprang 
up the ladder. 

“Look sharp there, Mr. Ricks — where 
are your eyes?” he called out an instant later 
from the head of the gangway, after a word 
with the officer of the deck. 

The tide was running swiftly, and the 
women gave little screams as they jumped 
into the dancing boats, waiting below. The 
band was playing “ Home, Sweet Home,” 
and two or three couples, Mrs. Furze 
among them, were gliding slowly about the 
deck. 

Miss Hull was descending the swaying 


1 14 FROM THREE TO SIX, DANCING 


gangway, smiling down into the face, up- 
raised to hers, of one of the Austrian at- 
taches, who held her hand closely in his. 
The Russian officers headed out for the 
Olga in their own cutter, singing their 
national hymn as they went, the deep sad 
tones coming back more and more faintly 
with each dip of the oars. Women’s voices 
called out across the water as the boats 
pushed off, “Good-by,” “Good-night,” 
and “ Good-by” again. 

Miss Hull’s soft laugh rippled back like a 
pennant from the last boat. 

Four bells sounded faintly from the flag- 
ship; sharp and clear came the strokes on the 
Essex; an echo from the Olga, and then a 
sudden hush and a quick veiling of the golden 
light. 


WAR AND PEACE 


4 


WAR AND PEACE 


In the Navy, with its constant and rapid 
changes, its almost limitless possibilities from 
day to day, the fates themselves seem to sit 
alert spinning on one’s very doorstep. One 
unconsciously treads lightly and whispers in 
hopes of being forgotten, if only for a pass- 
ing hour. Many a hasty word dies on the 
lips because of the aching memory of a cruise 
just passed, the haunting fear of one fast 
approaching. 

Of course there had been misunderstand- 
ings between them before, in the usual rise 
and fall in the tide of all human relations, 
but never before anything like this. 

Ensign Phelps had just returned from a 
long, wearing cruise to find a condition of 
things political that suddenly dwarfs the 
proportions of things feminine. Also his 
sense of humor, never rampant, happened 
to be further attenuated by studying late into 
the night for his approaching examination 
for promotion. 

117 


1 18 


WAR AND PEACE 


Mrs. Phelps had tried to face it all, but 
the two dreary years of separation had left 
her with nerves that shivered at a breath. 
Then, too, she had instantly recognized and 
resented that feeling in him that comes to 
all men at such times — the sense that the 
deep purposes and ends of his life had 
brushed her aside, that he wanted both arms 
free for once. 

The brute that fights to win, and has 
been trained fifteen years for just that, was 
awake and on fire within him. Nothing of 
this had been spoken between them, and yet 
it was at the root of their quarrel that spring 
morning, when words were said back and 
forth that seemed to sweep up the love, 
devotion, patience of two lives like ashes on 
the hearth where a fire has died. 

He strode along the gray, chill streets on 
the way to his ship at the navy yard, and 
she stood still, wide-eyed and white, and 
for them both the past and future were 
wiped out, and the present only lived in 
one of those flaming agonies of disillusion 
of which one somehow survives such a sur- 
prising number in the course of a lifetime. 

The baby at her feet plucked at her dress, 
and the mother did not even feel it, wrapped 


WAR AND PEACE 


ng 

in that overwhelming sense of finality that 
belongs to passionate youth. 

She looked about in dull amazement at 
the familiar things about her that made up 
their simple little home. There, under the 
lamp, were his books and a pad and pencil 
where he had sat studying last night, and 
near it her work where she had been beside 
him sewing in unwilling silence after her 
long isolation. The indent of her head was 
still in the pillow on the lounge where she 
had at length thrown herself and lay watch- 
ing him until she fell asleep toward mid- 
night. 

She glanced about, half dazed, and then 
Ruth, her old colored maid, the only servant 
she had ever had, came in from the kitchen 
and spoke to her in that low, sweet, com- 
pelling voice of hers, that went back to Mrs. 
Phelps’s babyhood down in Maryland. 

She obeyed the voice from habit, and 
went mechanically about her morning duties, 
in the performance of which a certain warmth 
and pliability returned to her frozen mood. 
A sense of anger and outrage began to burn 
again at his last stinging words, whose probe 
went deep with the sure cruelty of long asso- 
ciation. 


120 


WAR AND PEACE 


She took her little girl and went out on 
her homely round of marketing, largely 
trumped up by keen-witted old Ruth. 

On returning, she toiled wearily up the 
three flights of the apartment house — the 
elevator so seldom ran after the men had 
gone for the day. She sank exhausted on 
the lounge in the tiny dining-room and let 
the child pull off her gloves, one obstinate 
finger at a time. 

Her eyes were shut and a nerveless re- 
action had set in, when she heard a young 
step bounding up the stairs, and a sharp 
ring at her bell. She was half-conscious 
that Ruth opened the door, and that a boy’s 
high voice was saying : 

“ Can’t I see the lady herself?” 

She sat up as he approached. 

“ Holding telefoam — corner drug-store, 
lady — youse’ll hev to hurry,” he panted, 
and was gone again in a flash. 

Mrs. Phelps sprang after him, and called 
down the stairs : 

“What number? Where from? Did 
you hear ! ” 

“ Sixty-one,” he shouted, from two stories 
below. 

“The navy yard!” she exclaimed, a 


WAR AND PEACE 


I 2 I 


thrill of premonition sending her heart into 
her throat. 

A moment later she stood alone in the 
telephone-closet at the corner, and through 
the transmitter a soft “ Hullo! ” sped on its 
way. Then she listened. 

“ Yes, I’m Mrs. Phelps. Who are you?” 
She had not recognized the voice that had 
answered. 

“ Oh, Guy ! ” she cried, softly, in sudden, 
illogical, overwhelming relief, as she clung 
tightly to the receiver. 

“ Yes, yes — I’ll listen carefully,” she said 
next ; and then silence. 

“What? What? Say it again, very 
slowly. I can’t understand. Surely I 
haven’ t understood ! ’ ’ Her voice was sharp, 
with a sudden dread. Again silence, and 
then her answer : 

“Not to-day? At once? The ship or- 
dered to Porto Rico? Have I got it right? 
Oh, Guy, have I got it right?” 

She listened, and a low moan of pain 
escaped her. 

“ But — but surely you’ll come home for a 
minute? I’ll see you again?” 

The answer sent a shiver through her 
from head to foot, and she said, fiercely: 


122 


WAR AND PEACE 


“ I cannot stand it, Guy. I cannot! To 
have you go at once like this — after this 
morning. Could I see you — just see you, 
Guy — if I went straight to the yard now ? ’ * 
And a few seconds later: 

“It’s too terrible, too cruel!” Sud- 
denly she started violently, as a thought 
flashed through her head, and she asked, 
rapidly: 

‘ 4 Guy, be honest with me, does this sud- 
den order mean — does it mean — war? Is 
there any news ? Something I don' t know ? ’ ’ 
And after an interval: 

“ Yes, yes, I’ll try. No one knows yet, 
of course. But, Guy, speak to me — your 
voice is still cold and hard and strange. Say 
something to me — one word I can cling to, 
to help me! ” 

“What?” A pause. 

“You are in the paymaster’s office? 
Clerks all about? Is that it? Please 
whisper it, and I’ll try and catch it.” 

’ She listened painfully — only a burr, a 
woman’s laugh, a word in an unknown 
voice, a tantalizing, incessant vibration 
from the endless feverish crisscross of life 
going on forever, in which she had no part. 

“ I can’t hear, oh, Guy, I can’t hear a 


WAR AND PEACE 


123 


word,” she panted. “Don’t go yet. When 
can I hear from you ? Just one minute. I 
want to say something, Guy.” 

The telephone - bell sounded with sharp 
impatience even as she spoke. She rang 
again and again and there was no answer. 

“ Come back; I must say one word. Cen- 
tral, give me 61, please give me 61. Guy, 
dear, won’t you come for one single second ? 
I’m — I’m so sorry for this morning. It was 
all my fault, every bit of it.” 

She pleaded, sobbing, into the senseless 
thing in her hand, that no longer respond- 
ed. She rang again, and once again, fran- 
tically. 

Then she sprang rigidly erect and whis- 
pered : 

“It is too late — he’s gone — perhaps for- 
ever.” Her head fell forward, she swayed 
toward the closet door, fumbled at the 
handle, opened it, and cried in a voice 
faint and pitiful: “Will someone — help 
me?” 

Her failing sight saw Ruth hurrying tow- 
ard her through the street door; her failing 
hearing was pierced by the shrill young 
voice of a newsboy dashing round the cor- 


ner : 


124 


WAR AND PEACE 


“Ex-tra, ex-tra! President’s message 
read in Congress ! War sure to ” 

His voice was lost in the roar of the 
streets, and Mrs. Phelps sank unconscious 
into Ruth’s arms. 

Twenty-four hours passed. Half through 
the night and all day long the cries of the 
newsboys reached the shrinking hearing of 
the young wife. Her sweet face was stiff 
and ashy with suffering, her hands so cold 
that her child shrank from her touch, and 
whimpered. 

As the day drew to its close, Mrs. Phelps 
lay once again silent and spent on the old 
lounge, and again she heard a quick step 
spring up the stairs, a ring at her bell, the 
low words at the door. It seemed like the 
confused memory of a dream. She did not 
even open her eyes until Ruth said close be- 
side her: 

“One these yer mess’ ger boys, Miss 
Nannie, jes’ broughten this yer passel fo’ 
you. It do smell like it might be some 
sort er bo’quet,” she added, smiling. 

“Put it down, mammy; I’ll arrange 
them later,” said Mrs. Phelps. Probably 
some friend at the yard, who knew of the 


WAR AND PEACE 


125 


ship’s sudden sailing, had remembered her 
and sent her a silent message of sympathy in 
this sweet way. It was often done from 
one sad-hearted wife to another, just to help 
a little in the endless pathos of their com- 
mon lives. 

“ Land sakes, Miss Nannie, ain’t you 
put them posies in water yet? ” complained 
Ruth, again appearing at the door, watch- 
ing for some spark of interest in that set 
white face before her yearning eyes. 

“All right, mammy dear ; please don’t 
scold,” said Mrs. Phelps, a smile breaking for 
an instant through the rigidity of her face. 

She arose and began to untie the string 
about the pasteboard box. She raised the 
lid and lifted out a great pile of pink and 
yellow roses. The baby ran toward her 
with a soft coo of delight. 

Then Mrs. Phelps gave a loud cry and 
the roses fell all about her. She stood star- 
ing wildly at an envelope that had slipped 
to the bottom of the box, addressed to her 
in her husband’s handwriting. It was as 
if it came from the grave, that awful silence 
of the sea. 

For a second she was afraid to touch it, 
and stood with her hands pressed over 


126 


WAR AND PEACE 


her heart. Then she seized the envelope, 
and with one swift motion of her trembling 
forefinger ripped it open, and read wfith 
eyes half blinded by tears : 

“ The pilot leaves us at Scotland light- 
ship in a few moments. He will take this 
back to the city. Also an order for a few 
flowers, which I can only hope will go 
straight. You should get this to-morrow 
or next day. I am on my knees to you, my 
wife, for this morning. I beg your pardon, 
for this morning, every ugly word of it. Try 
and forget it if you can. Stamp it out of your 
memory, for it has no real existence against 
all the rest — all the happy years. Just try 
and remember those, and love me a little, 
dear. 

“ Peace may come out of it all yet ; and 
if not — try and be brave. A sailor has need 
of a plucky wife, one drilled into the tough 
spirit of a * regular * by long service. And 
remember : 


Ours not to reason why, 

Ours but to do 

(he had shied at the word, with no time 
to rewrite). Good-by, my love. Ah ! if 
I could have held you just for one second 


WAR AND PEACE 


127 


and heard you whisper : ‘It’s all right, 
Guy.’ But take our little one in your arms 
and look into her eyes — my eyes, you’ve 
always said — and read there my endless love 
and honor. Kiss her and hold her close 
and forgive me, forgive me.” 

Mrs. Phelps fell on her knees, and throw- 
ing her arms about her baby began to sob 
like a tired child. 

At that moment, once again, the shout 
came piercingly up from the street below : 

“ Ex-tra ! Congress will declare war ! ” 

The young wife sprang to her feet and 
shook her fist in the direction of the voice, 
and half laughing, half sobbing, she cried: 

“It is not war — it is peace, thank God ! ” 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 





MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


One of the jokes of the ship — in fact, the 
most popular joke among several — was En- 
sign Anvers’s state-room. Being only six by 
eight feet, and containing twelve views of 
the same young and very pretty little lady, 
it may be said to have “worn its heart on 
its sleeve,” as it were. 

These photographs had arrived quarterly 
during the three years the United States 
ship Alliance was gone on the cruise to 
China. When one considers that the very 
first to reach the eager hands of the enslaved 
Ensign was a bromide print showing hair 
so long that it not only could be, but 
honestly had to be, parted and tied back 
with a ribbon, the beauties of the last 
photograph before the Alliance was ordered 
home may be left to the imagination. 

The truth is, Margery was his baby girl, 
from whose tiny fists he positively tore his 
forefingers away when she was only about a 
month old, when his ship was sent away 
to the very rim of the world. 


132 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


The Ensign was the youngest and by far 
the biggest officer in the mess ; and as he 
bored everyone to death talking about his 
child, and reading aloud all the parts of 
his home letters relating to her, it naturally 
followed he had to stand a lot of ward-room 
chaff. It also naturally followed that when 
the American mail came on board, the other 
officers fled from him, to a man. 

But then he had such a way of laughing 
at himself, even more loudly than the rest, 
his face agleam, his ridiculous little mus- 
tache making the most of itself, that the 
mere sunny good nature and overflowing 
happiness of the young father made them 
ashamed. One by one they had a way of 
dropping into his state-room — aft on the 
starboard side — and with a brave “Well, 
Daddy Anvers, what’s the news of Mar- 
gery ? ’ ’ they stood the deluge of words 
which instantly followed. 

They knew all about her teething, and 
just how nearly the molars had finished 
her; they went through croup twice with 
her, and a slight attack of whooping-cough; 
they had to listen to the phenomenal wit 
of her first words, the wonder of her first 
steps— the result of it all being that the 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 133 


Ensign and his baby became important 
factors of that cruise. 

Naturally, there was a shout when Anvers 
came over the side to quarters, the early July 
morning after the Alliance got back to New 
York from Shanghai, and was anchored in 
the North River. 

They gathered around him on the deck, 
and a half-dozen voices called out : “ Morn- 
ing, daddy.” “ How’s the shaver?” 
“ Well, what did you think of her?” 
“ Yes ; and what did she think of you ? ” — 
this last speech with withering emphasis. 

If they had hoped by this public demon- 
stration to keep in check his parental ex- 
uberance, they failed utterly. 

He stood there smiling as only he could 
smile, dressed in his “ cits,” that he out- 
grew too rapidly for his pay, a new straw 
hat on the back of his head, the latest thing 
in neckties blazing under his round chin, 
and began at once and proudly, “ I say, 
fellows, the best yet ” 

“ Great Scott ! ” groaned his particular 
chum and classmate, Ensign Follin, the 
Captain’s aide, turning on his heel and walk- 
ing off as if in despair. 

“ By jingo, Anvers, you might let up on 


134 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


us, now you’ve got her mother to talk to,” 
expostulated the Assistant Engineer, and he 
and several others retreated suddenly. But 
the officer of the deck and the young sur- 
geon were too lazy to move, and to them 
Anvers went calmly on : “You see, of course 
she doesn’t remember me, and so she’s got 
all her ideas of me from a half-length photo- 
graph ’ ’ 

“And quite enough, too,” growled the 
officer of the deck, who had stood the morn- 
ing watch, and didn’t propose standing 
anything else that day without protest. 

‘ ‘ And so when her mother brought her 
in and introduced us with : ‘ Now, Mar- 

gery, here’s papa at last,’ my daughter-^ 

she’s a beauty, too, I tell you, Doc ” 

“ Took after her father’s family in that,” 
said the “ little doctor ” sweetly. 

“ Sure ! Well, my daughter looked me 
over slowly from head to foot, and then she 
said, positively: ‘No, ’tain’t ; my papa 
hasn’t got any legs.’ ” 

And they could hear his big, jolly laugh 
as he ran down the ladder to get into his 
uniform, and even the officer of the deck 
was left there smiling. 

A few days later the wives of some of the 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 135 


officers came off to the twelve-o’clock break- 
fast in the ward -room. Anvers looked very 
blank when he saw the small ball of white 
beside his wife in the ship’s cutter as it re- 
turned from the Twenty-third Street landing. 

“ What under the canopy shall we do 
with Margery?” he whispered to her/' as 
they stepped from the gangway to the deck. 

“I do want her to see you as much as 
possible, and get used to you, and realize 
things,” whispered back pretty little Mrs. 
Anvers, pathetically, adding: “ and you just 
must have a full-length photograph taken for 
her the very first day you’re off duty ; and 
she can have her nap in your state-room 
while we’re at lunch, and sometimes she 
sleeps for hours. ’ ’ 

In the meanwhile there stood little brown- 
eyed, yellow-haired Margery, a fluff of white 
muslin and baby lace, shaking hands gravely 
with the officers, who pressed about her, 
eager with curiosity and admiration. 

Far down the deck there stood the men 
in knots, straining forward to look, and in 
their eyes the sailor’s endless hunger for the 
sight of women and children. 

Margery’s little feminine heart told her 
that something was being expected of her in 


136 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 

the way of conversation, so during a pause 
she asked : 

“ Do you know Katie ? ” 

They exchanged glances ; a cadet burst 
suddenly into a loud laugh, and was at once 
sent away in disgrace. 

“No; but we all want to very much. 
Who is she?” volunteered the “big 
doctor ’ ’ gently, knowing it was expected of 
him as a family man to help them out. 

“ She’s des Katie,” was the sturdy reply. 

“Oh, yes, of course. Well, why didn’t 
you bring her ? ’ ’ 

“ My mamma said she couldn’t eat with 
the orsifers, and couldn’t eat with the sailors 
— so that’s why.” 

“Mrs. Anvers, how’s this? What’s the 
matter with us, that we can’t have the pleas- 
ure of Miss Katie’s society ? ” called out the 
doctor, turning toward the others. 

“Katie ! — what are you talking about ? ” 
exclaimed the little mother, advancing. 
“ She’s Margery’s nurse.” Thereupon there 
was such a howl of delight that the little 
girl fled frightened to her mother’s skirts. 
Presently she looked up, and they all heard 
her ask in a loud whisper : “ Mamma, are 
these the orsifers ? ’ ’ 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 137 


“Yes, dear.” 

“ Then I’d like to see the sailors, please, 
mamma. ’ ’ 

Amid shouts of laughter the wife of the 
navigator asserted, with pretended jealousy : 

“ Well, as far as we ladies are concerned, 
we might just as well have stayed at home, 
for all the attention we shall receive.” 

But after a while the hosts managed to 
tone down their sea-voices and manners to 
the child’s low key, and she became very 
friendly with them as the little party strolled 
about the deck. There is not much doubt 
that, by all their blandishments on this ex- 
citing occasion, Margery would have been 
utterly wrecked in both digestion and man- 
ners, if breakfast had not been soon an- 
nounced. 

As they turned to go below, a sudden fit 
of mischief seized her, and she danced away, 
laughing, down the deck toward the poop, 
where her mother and the little doctor 
caught her, stopped short by a rope across 
the deck and the burly form of the Quarter- 
master on watch. 

“What’s that for? I do hope they’re 
not painting,” Mrs. Anvers asked, anxiously, 
of the Assistant Surgeon. 


138 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


“ We’ve got a regular ‘ sundowner ’ in the 
Captain’s cabin this cruise. I dare say 
Anvers has mentioned the fact once or twice 
in his letters. You see, he has nerves — it 
certainly isn’t conscience — and he can’t 
sleep at night, and so has to make it up 
during the day ; hence this sacred spot over 
the cabin, which is dedicated to silence and 
repose.” 

“Mamma, what’s a sundowner?” Mar- 
gery asked, sleepily, a few moments later, as 
her mother took off the little white dress and 
tucked the child away in her father’s bunk, 
not much wider than her own small crib. 

“I’m sure I don’t know, Margery,” an- 
swered her mother, absent-mindedly. 

“Is it nice or howid ? ” 

“ Oh, horrid, of course.” 

And Margery’s very first thought on 
awakening, an hour and a half later, was of 
the extremely unsatisfactory nature of her 
mother’s reply, and for some time she lay 
still thinking about it. Then she crawled 
from the bunk, and struggled into her dress 
the best way she could, but of course it was 
not to be supposed she could fasten it at the 
back. Peeping out into the ward-room, she 
found no one there but the Japanese “ boys ” 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 139 

clearing off the deserted table, and carrying 
perfect mountains of plates in their small 
brown hands. 

It was very interesting to watch them, and 
she almost forgot her deep-laid plan until 
there was a sudden hush, and she noticed 
that the work was done, and only one ward- 
room boy was left, arranging the dark cover 
and the bowl of flowers in the exact centre 
of the long table. 

As he turned to leave, the tiny white 
figure with the rumpled head burst out of 
the state-room, crying : 

“ Oh, please don’t go away ! ” 

He turned quickly, and his face broke 
into one of those complete Japanese smiles 
that even the baby was quick to appreciate. 
She begged him in her pretty way to take 
her to the Captain’s cabin ; and he, think- 
ing all the party must be there, carried her 
up the ladder, pointed out the door to her, 
and then vanished in the radiance of another 
smile. 

She found, to her dismay, a big soldier 
walking back and forth ; but she waited for 
a chance, and holding up her skirt as she 
had seen her mother do when not wishing 
to make a noise, she tiptoed into the cabin 


140 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


pantry, and hid. Happily, the orderly was 
soon called away ; then she fled to the 
cabin door, and got safely inside. She 
turned with a beating heart and frightened 
eyes, and stared about. No one was there ; 
it was just a big bare room with a busy- 
looking desk in one corner. The room be- 
yond was empty, too, to her mingled relief 
and disappointment. Spying another door 
on the right, she pattered through, fairly 
holding her breath ; and there all she saw 
was a gray-haired man, lying on the bunk, 
asleep. 

She had been taught all her short life to 
respect sleep, so she climbed softly into the 
only chair in the room, folded her wee fat 
hands, and waited. 

She tried to be very quiet, but it’s not at 
all an easy thing to do immediately after a 
long nap, so finally she just had to give one 
little cough for company. 

The figure moved, and a voice called out, 
roughly : 

“ Get out ! get out ! I don’t care a rap 9 
who it is, or what it is ! I’ve told you, 
orderly ’ * 

With a child’s unfailing glee at being 
taken for someone else, Margery’s sweet 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 14 1 

baby-laugh stopped short the tirade. The 
man sat up suddenly, and a pair of angry 
blue eyes met her smiling brown ones. 

4 * What in thunderation ” he began, 

rubbing his eyes, and looking again in utter 
astonishment at the composed little creature. 

“ I’m so glad you woke up,” she said, 
comfortably. “ Please won’t you button 
my dress, and then I want to see the sun- 
downer,” she demanded at once, not caring 
to lose any more time ; and she slid off the 
chair, went close to the bunk, turned her 
back to him, and stood waiting. 

“ Is it buttoned?” she asked, presently, 
her pretty head half turned round. 

The man gave a short laugh. 

“ I couldn’t find mamma, you see, and I 
was in such a hurry,” she explained. She 
felt the fingers beginning to fumble at her 
back ; then she heard a low grunt of im- 
patience, and finally he sprang up off the 
bunk. He sat down in the chair, drew her 
toward him, and went to work deliberately 
on the buttons. When it was done, she 
turned and looked at him ; and he sat, the 
gray hair awry, and scowled back. He had 
on the very queerest kind of a long wrapper, 
fiery red, covered with huge black dragons, 


142 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


and Margery began to feel afraid for the 
first time. 

‘ ‘ I thought you were des the Captain ; but 
I guess you must — be — the — sundowner,” 
she said, faintly, edging off toward the door. 

“ Hang the sundowner ! Who told you 
about any sundowner, any way?” he 
growled. 

“ A man told mamma, upstairs,” was her 
vague answer, fortunately for the little 
doctor. 

“ Oh-oh ! um — well, what makes you 
think I’m the sundowner, now you’ve had 
a good look at me, eh ? ” 

“ ’Cause mamma said — somesin ’ ’ she 

said, hesitating, and very unhappy. 

“ So they all had a fling at me, it seems. 
What did she say ? Out with it ! ” 

“She said — he — was — howid,” wailed 
Margery, her lips trembling, and tears filling 
her eyes. 

Captain or sundowner, this man caught 
her up in his arms, and laughed loud and 
long as he carried her into the cabin and 
put her gently down on the cushioned tran- 
som, where she promised to stay until he 
rejoined her, after brushing his hair and 
slipping into his uniform. 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 143 

“You see, I’m ‘ des ’ the Captain ; the — 
er — sundowner went away just as you came 
in,” he explained, to her great relief. 

“ Does your little girl come and play here 
every day?” she chirped, blithely, now 
entirely at her ease, and enjoying herself 
hugely, after having told him all there was 
to tell about herself, including Katie. 

“ I haven’t any little girl, Margery.” 

“ Why ? ” He stared a moment. 

“I'm an old bachelor; I’m not mar- 
ried.” 

“Why? ” 

His grim face changed, and he said, slow- 
ly : “ Nobody ever seemed to want me.” 

She was standing leaning against his knee, 
and she began rubbing her hair into a worse 
tangle against his arm, before she answered, 
thoughtfully : 

“I’m not married, either, and I haven’t 
any little girls. I guess I’m an old bachelor, 
too.” 

And then and there Margery received her 
first proposal of marriage, and accepted it 
promptly, amid peals of laughter from them 
both as the bride-elect was tossed up to the 
ceiling. 

The colored steward began setting the 


144 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


table in the outer cabin, his eyes fairly pop- 
ping out of his head at the Captain’s un- 
usual visitor and consequent behavior. 

“This is my dinner hour,” he explained, 
“and by the bye, have they given you any 
lunch ? ’ ’ 

“Bread and milk,” confided Margery, 
making a little face. 

The Captain rang his bell. As the big 
marine opened the door he almost forgot to 
salute at the sight before him. He looked 
so thoroughly frightened that Margery in- 
stinctively looked quickly over the Captain’s 
shoulder. 

“That’s all right, orderly — this time,” 
said the Captain, with twinkling eyes. 
“ The enemy was a little too smart for you, 
and stole a march on us. Present my com- 
pliments to Mr. Anvers, and tell him I’d be 
pleased to see him at once.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the bewildered man, as 
he left the cabin. 

He found the Ensign with the rest of the 
party on the spar-deck, and delivered the 
message, saluting with an extra flourish for 
the benefit of the ladies. 

“ All right,” rang out Anvers’s big cheery 
voice, as he sprang to his feet. 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 145 


“ The Captain’s awake early to-day,” said 
he, looking at his watch, as he turned off 
with the orderly. 

“ Yes, sir ; he was waked, I think, sir. I 
found a little baby with him just now, 
and ” 

“A what?” shouted Anvers, stopping 
short. 

The man told all he knew, and the Ensign 
gave a groan as he strode back to the others, 
and said, tragically : 

“ I’m lost. Margery’s got into the cabin 
somehow, and waked the Great Mogul. 
She’s there now, and he’s sent for me. You 
would bring her,” he added, reproachfully, 
to his wife. 

“Oh, what will he do to you?” she asked, 
breathlessly, ready to cry. But all the others 
thought it was very funny indeed, and the 
men’s teasing voices followed poor Anvers as 
he strode away. 

“ Good-by, old shipmate. So sorry to 
lose you,” cried Follin. 

“ Want to borrow a trunk ? ” piped the 
little doctor. 

“We’ll go in and gather up his bones in 
five or six minutes,” suggested the chief, 
gloomily. 


146 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


“ ‘I,’ said the fly, ’ 

‘ With my little eye, 

I saw him die,’ ” 

croaked the Paymaster. 

“ Come in, come in,” said the Captain, 
rather irritably, as Anvers hesitated at the 
cabin-door. 

“I’m so sorry, Captain. Mrs. Anvers 

and I feel all cut up about this. We ” he 

burst out at once; but the Captain inter- 
rupted in his usual rough way : 

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about, 
Mr. Anvers; ” then, as he caught sight of 
Margery’s surprised eyes upraised to his, he 
added, more pleasantly : 

“ I sent for you to say that, with Mrs. 
Anvers’s and your permission, your daughter 
will do me the honor of sharing my early 
dinner with me. And, by the way, the next 
time the ward-room funds are so low that 
you can offer only bread and milk to young 
ladies who come off to my ship, I wish you’d 
let me know.” 

“And tell mamma he buttoned up my 
dress, and we’re going to get married, and the 
sundowner isn’t here at all,” cried Margery, 
all in a breath, to her father’s unspeakable 
horror. He coughed, he stared, he stam- 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 147 


mered ; then he turned and fled, followed by 
his commander’s hearty laugh, which did not 
cease when Margery, her eyes still on the 
door, sighed heavily, and said, very dubi- 
ously : 

“ Mamma says that’s my papa.” 

Tom, the Captain’s steward, was called 
upon to tell the story of that dinner very 
often through the rest of his long and hon- 
orable naval career. He always began the 
same way : 

“It was de ol’ ’lustration ob de lion an’ 
de lamb ; an’ you -all know mighty well de 
sorter lion he was. Well, you ought’ er seed 
de lamb ! My lan’ ! I ’dare I nebber waited 
so porely in a cabin befo’, an’ dat’s de truff. 
My eyes an’ my y’ars was ’pletely oc’pied 
observin’ dem two — de little missy she a-sit- 
tin’ on de torp ob de big dictionary, ’havin’ 
jes like a lady — better ’n some I seed ; an’ 
de ol’ Cap’n he smilin’ as sweet as surup, 
’joyin’ hisse’f right much, he was. You 
wouldn’t er-knowed um fo’ de same pusson. 
An’ eb’ry time dat chil’ she jet natu’ly 
’mired any contraptions on de table or round 
dem rooms, he up an’ he says to me, says 
he: ‘Torm, jes’ you do dat up with dese 
yer other things fo’ Miss Anvers,’ — jes’ like 


148 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


dat. ‘ Miss Anvers’ ! My lan’ ! dar was 
nuts an’ figs, an’ photographs, an’ dat yer 
Japanese wrapper o’ his’n ; an’ all de flowers 
on de table — de greates’ passel ob truck ! 
An’ Mister Cook he mus’ cum up an’ see fo’ 
hisse’f ! He ain’ got no call ter cum up ter 
my pantry, great big plantation nigger like 
dat ! He ain’ use ter society, he ain’ — 
shufflin’, slap-sided ol’ — . Well, bimeby dey 
cum fo’ de little missy an’ carried her away. 
An’ she done kiss um good-by, with bofe of 
her purty little yarms ’bout his ol’ neck. 
An’ when she done gone away, he sat an’ 
he looked out’n de po’t-hole, an’ he clean 
forgot to smoke, an’ he nebber moved, an’ 
he nebber said nothin’ ’tall.” 

Within two hours after the party of ladies 
had gone ashore the Captain of the Alliance 
received telegraphic orders from the Navy 
Department to proceed “ with all speed ” to 
Haiti. 

So at daylight the next morning from 
under the forecastle came the click-click of 
the capstan, the slow, rhythmic tramp of the 
sailors circling around it, keeping time to the 
old familiar tune on the bugle as they hove 
in the anchor-chain. And away the ship 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 149 


sailed, with never a chance for even a good- 
by to the wives and babies on shore. When 
she arrived and was anchored in the harbor 
of Gonaives, they found another revolution 
in progress, and the men were landed at once 
to protect the United States consulate. 

The hot weeks dragged along. Ensign 
Anvers never had any trouble now in get- 
ting an audience to listen to his news about 
Margery. 

The ward-room, as a body, looked serious 
when the letter came saying that she was far 
from well, and, a little later, that she was 
very ill. The whole ship, down to the green- 
est recruit, missed “ Daddy ” Anvers’s noisy 
fun and laugh as he went about his duties 
pale and in silence. 

The Captain heard the bad news through 
his aide, and he fell into his old savage way 
with his officers and men. Sometimes, in the 
midst of one of his furies, it seemed to him 
that suddenly he saw a pair of very surprised 
brown eyes looking up at him from a baby’s 
height, and heard a baby’s voice asking about 
the sundowner; and then he would forget 
what he was scolding about, and walk off 
frowning. 

One very hot, breathless night, about 


150 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 

eleven o’clock, the officers, all in white-duck 
uniform, were lounging on deck, when the 
Quartermaster of the watch approached and 
said : 

“ The officer of the deck reports a signal 
from the shore : ‘ Send boat for telegram for 
Ensign Anvers. ’ ’ ’ The young father sprang 
to his feet as if shot, and the heavy silence 
told of what they were thinking. Anvers 
went straight to the officer of the deck, and 
with him to the First Lieutenant, who was 
sitting apart with the old chief. 

“ Can a boat be sent ashore for a telegram 
for me, sir ? ” the Ensign asked. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Anvers, but we’re too 
short of men, as you know, owing to the 
landing parties, to make up a cutter’s crew ; 
and the fires are hauled on the steam-launch. 
Why don’t you have it opened and the con- 
tents wigwagged ! That signal shows it is 
in the hands of one of our men from the con- 
sulate.” 

So the order was given. Anvers got his 
private code-book. Mrs. Anvers also had a 
copy of this book. It contained a list of 
single words to be telegraphed; and each 
word meant a whole sentence — the sentence 
being written opposite the word in the code- 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 15 1 

book. All the officers followed him, and 
stood about as the signal-man adjusted one 
lantern on the rail and began swinging the 
other. Letter by letter the message was 
spelled out to the light upon the distant 
shore: ‘ 4 Open telegram and repeat.” 
Quickly the reply came : “ I understand.” 

After a short delay the light on the shore 
began swaying again. The signal-boy on the 
Alliance read aloud the letters as they came, 
and Ensign Follin took them down for 
Anvers, who walked restlessly up and down 
in the dark a few paces away. The Captain 
stood near unobserved, and listened intently. 

The message was : 

“ Telegram for Ensign Danvers, dated 
New York City, July 28 . ‘ R-e-a-1 — ’” 
then followed a short pause — “ ‘ 1-y.’ Signed, 
Belle.’” 

“ Signal-boy, bring that lantern; quick, 
man ! ” some one ordered. Anvers turned 
over the pages of the little code-book, his 
face showing in the light as white as his 
blouse. Under the head of “ Sickness,” he 
read : 

“Really — ‘ Margery has passed away.’ ” 

The book dropped to the deck, and his 
head fell forward against the steering-wheel. 


152 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


Several of his friends gathered about him 
silently. 

Follin felt someone touch his arm, and 
turning, found the Captain at his elbow. 

“ Bring that code-book down to my cabin 
at once, Mr. Follin,” he said, and then 
turned away quickly. 

A moment later he and his aide were con- 
sulting together at his desk. 

The result of that talk in the cabin was 
that Follin got up very early the next morn- 
ing, and when the telegram of the night 
before came off in the market-boat, he took 
it to the Captain, who was waiting for him. 
When the boat returned to the shore the 
young aide was in it. 

He went at once to the consulate, asked 
for a horse, and a good one, and after a short 
delay one was brought. Springing to the 
saddle, he took the road to the nearest tele- 
graph station, forty miles away, at Mole St. 
Nicholas. 

He started away off at a breakneck sailor- 
pace along the fairly good, level road. But 
very soon he slowed down to a steady gait as 
he left mile after mile behind him. He flew 
past groves of banana-trees, cocoanuts, and 
palms; past the funny little mules laden with 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 153 


coffee and black babies, beside which trudged 
the barefooted mothers; past low, thatched 
huts, and ragged natives left standing staring 
after him. 

At Gros Morne he rested, lunched, and 
got a fresh mount, and then began the weary 
climb over the rough mountain road from 
there on to his journey’s end. 

At Mole St. Nicholas he went straight 
to the telegraph office, and asked for the 
original telegram for the Alliance, and the 
operator who received it on the previous day. 

Half an hour later, astride of another 
horse, back he started for Gona'ives. 

It was late in the afternoon when he reached 
there, and, to his great disgust, he found that 
he had to be lifted out of the saddle. 

But he soon stamped some of the stiff- 
ness out of his legs, and bolted for the quay, 
and just made the last regular boat from 
the Alliance, into which he tumbled. Tak- 
ing the yoke-lines, he huskily gave the or- 
ders : “ Shove off ! Out oars ! Give way to- 
gether ! ’ ’ 

The rowing sailors eyed him suspiciously 
as he sat huddled in the stern, white with 
fatigue, and covered and caked with dust and 
mud from head to foot. 


154 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


As he went over the ship’s side he found 
the Captain waiting for him at the gangway. 

“What news?” he asked, quickly. 

For answer Follin handed him the telegram 
and Anvers’ s code-book, which he took from 
his pocket. 

The Captain was a moment examining 
them ; then, as he handed them back, he 
said, quietly : 

“ You’ll find him in the ward-room.” He 
turned away, then stopped, and added, very 
gently : 

‘ ‘ Look after yourself, my boy ; that was a 
pretty stiff ride for even a Kentucky sailor, 
you know.” 

A half-moment later Follin burst into the 
ward-room, shouting : 

“Anvers, old man — Anvers, I say! It’s 
all right — Margery’s all right ; do you hear? 
The telegram we got last night was wrong. 
Instead of Really it should have been Ready , 
and that means, * Margery has passed the 
crisis and will recover ! ’ ” 

The Ensign was on his feet, and stood star- 
ing blankly. The others sat in silence, too 
moved to speak, and each trying to keep the 
tears back in their proper place in military 
society. 


MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 155 


“Your confounded old code isn’t worth 
a cent! ” Follin went on, looking like the 
veriest tramp as he stood there scolding to 
relieve his excitement. ‘ 4 The idea of having 
two words so much alike ! Why any sort of 
a plain Monday-morning, wash-day idiot 
would know better. And there it was, clear 
as day, d instead of ll ; and they told me at 
the telegraph office ’ ’ 

“Telegraph office? The Mole?” they 
asked in amazement. 

“Where else? Here it is, Anvers; see 
for yourself. I took your fool code-book 
with me.” 

“You’re a — a — brick, Follin ! ” was all 
the big young father could find to say, in a 
broken voice, as he went to his friend and 
threw his arm over his dusty shoulders. 

“I’m not the brick; go ’long with you ! 
I always told you fellows you didn’t quite 
know him. It was he who noticed the fumble 
last night over that word, and the blurr in 
the despatch that came off in the market- 
boat this morning ; it was he who sent me, 
who paid expenses and all that; I only 
obeyed orders ; I only 

“He? Who’s he?” 

“ Why, the Captain, of course.” 


156 MARGERY AND THE CAPTAIN 


‘ ‘ Wha-a-t, the old sundowner ? ’ ’ and they 
looked at one another and fairly gasped. 

And up on deck a gray-haired man, with 
his hands clasped behind him, paced back 
and forth alone, smiling to himself very con- 
tentedly. 




AMMA-SAN 



0 



I 


AMMA-SAN 


Kane, Mrs. Wemple-Jones’s betto, had 
been almost the whole afternoon delivering 
ten “ chits,” seven on the Bluff and three 
in the Settlement. He was warm, tired, and 
dusty, but borne up by the memory of a 
five minutes’ chat he managed to have with 
pretty O-Kimasan, Mrs. Drypolcher’s second 
amah, while Ah-Ling’s sharp Chinese eyes 
were occupied in fathoming the cause of 
the loud, wrathful scream of the last O-baby - 
san, whose carriage it was her high office 
to push about in the shady parts of the 
“compound,” between four and six on hot 
afternoons. Kima followed laggingly after 
with next two toddlers, who adored their 
pliable Japanese amah and bullied her out- 
rageously ; knowing full well that Ah-Ling’s 
“no can do” was as substantial as the wall 
of China, and loathing her accordingly. 

Then Kane’s cousin, the jinrikisha man, 
whom he had met, lounging along holding 
the shafts of his empty ’rikisha high in air, 
i59 


i6o 


AMMA-SAN 


had given him a lift over that long, hot 
stretch toward the Bluff Gardens, where a 
note had to be delivered to Mrs. Sterritt, 
whose bungalow overlooked the paddy 
fields, at the far end of white civilization. 
He owed Kane one yen thirty-five sen, and 
there seemed to be no immediate prospect 
of getting it out of him in any other way. 

Also Kane had had time for a cup of 
refreshing tea — which he had felt obliged to 
refuse everywhere else — at the American 
consulate, while he waited in the kitchen 
for a lengthy reply to be written to his hon- 
orable mistress’s invitation. He had heard 
Cho-san say it was for a tea next Thursday, 
and they had had their usual laugh together 
of the noisy, ridiculous way these foreigners 
gave teas ; they had seen the Cha-no-yu, and 
knew what was what. 

So, altogether, he had not found this de- 
livery of Mrs. Wemple-Jones’s many chits as 
arduous as usual. 

He and Cho-san often pondered on the 
untold wealth of their danna-sama, whose 
wife entertained as she did, year in and year 
out. 

It was Cho’s distinct conviction that the 
Great Mikado himself had no better income 


AMMA-SAN 


161 


than this American tea merchant, in whose 
employ they happily found themselves. 
Kane saw more of life than Cho, who was 
always fussing around in his kitchen, and he 
considered this an over-estimate, and in the 
evenings, at the public bath, they argued 
about it at length. 

The betto reached the Wemple-Jones’s 
compound, took off his large mushroom 
hat, wiped his hot face on his blue strip of a 
handkerchief, slipped off his geta at the 
back door leading into the hall, and sought 
his mistress. The dignified, austere house 
“ boy,” of whom Kane stood in awe, passed 
and told him the O-kamisan was on the side 
veranda and desired to see him. Kane ap- 
proached her, bowing low and drawing in 
his breath, before saying : “ Chit-book ari- 
mas ! ” as his mother had taught him to do 
when he was two years old. 

Mrs. Wemple-Jones was lying limply on 
a long wicker chair, dressed in a white linen 
wrapper fashioned with bell-shaped sleeves, 
and something prehistoric about the shoul- 
der-seams. She was a tall, painfully thin, 
nervous-looking woman, with the colorless 
face of an old resident in the East. 

It was too warm to do more than plan 


1 62 


AMMA-SAN 


dinners and tiffins for the coming season. 
This in itself was no light task, as there was 
always the international question to keep in 
mind, besides certain time-honored feuds 
between leading families. The combinations 
were not so easily made ; it required fore- 
thought and tact and a far-reaching memory 
to bring about those social successes that 
made her pre-eminent in Yokohama. 

The heat was something unheard-of for 
that time of the year, and here they all 
were back in town, to escape the discomfort 
of the September rains in the mountains. 
She simply had not been able to resist ask- 
ing these few American intimates of hers to 
tea to meet the new “navy woman,” Mrs. 
Habersham, who had just arrived on the 
last O. & O. steamer. She would have tea 
served under the pines, it would not be so 
bad. The American set must pass judg- 
ment upon her before taking her up con 
amore , as they so dearly loved to do, and 
asking the English ladies to call on her. 

She lazily opened her chitbook and 
glanced over the ten entries after the names 
of her tea-party. Two had written : “Ac- 
cept with thanks.” Mrs. Drypolcher had 
written : “ Yoroshii, arigato ” — she was al- 


AMMA-SAN 


163 


ways so slangy. The consul’s wife had sent 
a note explaining at length that if she did 
not go to Nikko the next day she would give 
herself the pleasure. There were two ‘ ‘ re- 
grets,” with 4 ‘ Miyanoshita ” written after 
the word in explanation — no wonder people 
were going back to the mountains ! The 
receipts after the rest of the names were in 
Japanese, written by the servants, their mis- 
tresses not being at home. Just as she closed 
the book, Mr. Wemple-Jones bustled in un- 
expectedly early from the club, to say that 
the American mail had been sighted, he 
wanted an early dinner, and would not be 
back from the office until midnight. 

The breathless days and nights dragged 
along and Thursday came, and Mrs. Wem- 
ple-Jones was to be found seated in the 
shade on the lawn in that corner which 
overlooked the bay. It always seemed to 
make one feel cooler to see the water and 
the little crinkled sails of the fishing sam- 
pans scudding along. The “boy” had 
arranged a half-dozen shaky teapoys con- 
veniently on the close-cut lawn, with wicker 
chairs, in several groups. Kane hovered 
in the background to render humble aid in 
case the august “ boy-san ” needed it. It 


164 


AMMA-SAN 


was almost half-past four and no one had 
come, and Mrs. Wemple-Jones felt a little 
cross and hurt as she sat by the tea-table 
covered with gay china, bright silver, snowy 
doilies and plates of tiny tea- wafers and 
fragrant chocolate eclairs — she was so sure 
of Cho’s eclairs ! 

She leaned back and took two stitches in 
a much behandled piece of drawn work that 
she had been working at perfunctorily for 
over six years. Then there was the clatter 
of a trap along the carriage-drive, and the 
mom-ban’s voice as he made his shrill an- 
nouncement at the gate ; and in a moment 
two women approached, strolling leisurely 
toward their hostess, who rose to greet 
them. 

“The season’s commenced, I see,” cried 
out the shorter of the advancing couple, 
pointing to the drawn- work in Mrs. Wem- 
ple- Jones’s hands — it had been the signal 
for years. Before they were fairly seated the 
rest came singly in jinrikishas, or in pairs in 
their low-hung traps, and all but Mrs. Haber- 
sham had arrived. The samovar steamed 
and Mrs. Wemple-Jones’s thin hands flut- 
tered over the cups as she inquired : 

“Is it one or two lumps, Mrs. Sterritt? 


AMMA-SAN 165 

I never feel certain about your sugar.” And 
again : 

“ One lump and no cream, isn’t it, Mrs. 
Drypolcher ? ’ ’ who answered, dryly : 

“ No, dear; cream, please, and three 
good-sized lumps, always,” and there was a 
little laugh at their hostess’s expense, who 
did nothing purposelessly; it was only one 
of her many “openings.” 

They all knew one another so well, more 
like school-girls than grown women ; most of 
them over thirty, if the truth were told. 
They met almost daily in their indolent, 
luxurious, al fresco lives. At the tennis or 
athletic grounds, at picnics, at the races, at 
the native “flower viewings ” in spring and 
autumn, or in the mountains during the 
short, hot summer ; at teas, tiffins, dinners, 
and balls ; or simply spending long, busy 
mornings over the vexed questions of the 
toilet. Or, on the sombre side, they watched 
together in many a darkened chamber and 
held each other’s hands and wiped away 
each other’s tears, when sickness and death 
visited their loved ones. The close intimacies 
among foreigners, in these far-off lands, take 
the place of blood ties and are far nearer 
after half a lifetime of separation from home. 


i66 


AMMA-SAN 


“Well,” said Mrs. Drypolcher, after the 
cakes were passed and the preliminaries of 
the tea-service were over, “ has anyone seen 
her ? ” They all looked at Mrs. Ames, who 
hastened to say : 

“ No, funny enough, she has had all her 
meals in her rooms ever since she came to 
the hotel, and was out, as usual, when I sent 
up my card.” 

“Then the only two who have met her 
have gone to ‘ Miyanoshita ’ for ten days — 
such weather ! ’ ’ 

“ I don’t mind anything so long as there’s 
no cholera,” said the doctor’s wife. 

“Dear me, I do hope she will prove to 
be nice. Do you remember that navy wom- 
an who was here five years ago? Where 
on earth she ever came from ! ’ ’ 

“ The one with the high-necked ball- 
dress of white cashmere and that holy look 
in her eyes ? ’ ’ 

“Yes; don’t you remember Mrs. Ames 
said her clothes amounted to a Unitarian 
sermon ! Yes, you did, too — and then the 
way she turned out.” 

“ Let’s give her a chance, girls, anyhow,” 
said Mrs. Ames, whose white hair gave her 
many privileges, who posed voluntarily as 


AMMA-SAN 167 

elderly and was, in consequence, the most 
popular woman in town. 

“ She’s not over-prompt, for one thing,” 
murmured Mrs. Wemple-Jones, noticing the 
steady disappearance of the eclairs and strik- 
ing the old temple gong at her feet with the 
muffled knocker to have the plate replenished. 
Just as the sweet, pulsing sound died away 
there was the light rattle of jinrikisha wheels 
over the gravelled carriageway on the other 
side of the maples. There was a rustle, fol- 
lowed by a hush among the tea-drinkers. 

“There she is! ” softly exclaimed Mrs. 
Wemple-Jones, rising and walking toward 
her low, rambling bungalow, meeting part 
way the advancing figure on whom all eyes 
were turned for an instant, with the result of 
a quick interchange of glances and a unan- 
imous sigh of relief, as, with drooping eye- 
lids, they stirred their tea. 

“ So good of you to come this frightfully 
hot day, Mrs. Habersham. I dare say you 
think we are simply mad to drink hot tea ; 
confess now ! ’ * said the hostess, after the 
introductions were over. A light, flexible, 
caressing voice replied, with a pretty hesita- 
tion that was not in the least embarrass- 


ment : 


i68 


AMMA-SAN 


“Well, really, since you urge me — but it 
is all so delightfully new to me, and I am so 
completely at sea, but you will prompt me 
just a little at first, won’t you?” and the 
bright, dark eyes looked about from face to 
face with such an appealing smile that each 
woman swore in her heart a (tentative) 
fealty to this brilliant creature, so graceful, 
so dainty, so vividly beautiful, so willing to 
be taught, so altogether fascinating. 

“ You suffer for the moment from the tea, 
but if you survive at all, you are good for 
the rest of the evening,” explained Mrs. 
Drypolcher. 

“We’ve tried everything, of course,” 
continued Mrs. Ames. 

They apparently did not look at her, but 
they lost nothing of that fleecy organdie 
costume of newer cut than their own ; the 
dainty bonnet made up of lilacs, with nar- 
row black velvet strings tied in a way new to 
them ; the parasol of white ribbed silk, with 
a splashing big bow of lilac ribbon tied at 
the handle, and, above all, the gloves — but 
they must warn her about those. 

She sat smiling, alert, sympathetic, speak- 
ing only to ask questions ; and they warmed 
toward her and advised her to waste no time 


AMMA-SAN 


169 


in wrapping all her gloves, not in immediate 
use, in flannel; each glove separately; put 
them in glass preserving jars, and seal with 
wax. About the end of October it was safe 
to open the jars till the end of May ; then 
sealing-wax, as before. 

“Safe? I don’t believe I quite under- 
stand.” 

“ Mildew ! ” cried the voices in chorus. 

“And you will come down, before long, 
to silk mitts after May, as we all do,” added 
Mrs. Sterritt, with conviction. There was a 
moment’s pause, for they were all a little 
breathless, except Mrs. Drypolcher, who 
never was, and who now asked, in her way 
that made her old friends cringe : 

“And where is the Petrel? and when is 
the captain coming? and do pray tell us 
your plans.” 

“ Most of us remember Captain Haber- 
sham with so much pleasure, when he was 
out here on the Monocacy in his bachelor 
days,” Mrs. Wemple-Jones hastened to add. 

Leaning slightly forward, Mrs. Habersham 
queried: “Don’t you think it would be 
better for me to stay here ? And what do 
you think about my taking a house ? What 
would you advise ? ’ ’ 


170 


AMMA-SAN 


They were simply charmed, and there 
was a chorus of: “ It’s simply no trouble 
at all.” 

“And cheaper than anything you ever 
imagined.” 

“ We will find the servants.” 

“ I know just the house for you.” 

“ And the comfort ! you simply have not 
the ghost of an idea — after America.” 

“Leave it all to me, I have nothing to 
do,” said Mrs. Ames, in her reliable way. 

Mrs. Habersham had been quietly looking 
at houses for a week, but she was often sur- 
prised at finding herself experimenting in a 
mendacious reserve. 

Shortly after Mrs. Habersham’s house- 
keeping arrangements were satisfactorily 
settled, Regy Henshaw and Mr. Corkhill 
sauntered in and created a diversion. They 
were English, and “ went in ” for the Amer- 
ican colony, not without a sacrifice of the 
highest esteem of their own countrywomen, 
who were not, however, guiltless of certain 
equalizing annexations. 

A curious little change seemed to come 
over Mrs. Habersham, as both men stood in 
front of her, sipping their tea, maintaining 
with ease that difficult co-relation between 


AMMA-SAN 


1 7 1 

cup, saucer, and tiny spoon that has laid 
bare the weakness of far greater men. She 
leaned back slightly in her chair ; the quick, 
birdlike alertness faded slowly into a greater 
ease ; she smiled less, and there was a slow, 
half-lifting of her pretty brown eyes with 
lashes that curled upward, and the least touch 
of a drawl in the sweet voice. It was not 
long before Regy said to her : “ The handi- 
cap’s on this afternoon, you know ; do you 
care a ha’penny to see the thing ? Give me 
pleasure, and all that.” 

“ No, you don’t, Mr. Henshaw ! ” in 
terposed Mrs. Drypolcher’s strident voice, 
“ we’ve only just got round to earthquakes 
and wiring curios; we haven’t so much as 
touched on typhoons and cholera — you 
can’t have her yet.” 

Acclamations from the others, including 
Mr. Corkhill, supported her protest, and it 
was to be wondered whether Mrs. Haber- 
sham in the least knew what a delightful 
picture she made, standing undecided, half 
yielding to the last voice, whether coming 
from the semi -circle of laughing women or 
from Regy, who had possessed himself of her 
parasol, opened it and was holding it over 
her head, apparently sure of his final victory, 


172 


AMMA-SAN 


for even his detractors accorded him the 
compensating instincts of his anthropologic 
rank. The solvent was Mrs. Ames, as usual, 
who simply said : “ Let’s all go ! ” 

Regy swept the fair Helen off, and the tea- 
party was over. 

Mrs. Habersham said, lazily, as Mr. Hen- 
shavv helped her into his high trap, the bet- 
to holding the head of his ugly tempered 
Chinese pony : “I rather fancy that is the 
Tribunal, isn’t it? ” 

“ Beg pardon,? ” said he, not in the least 
deprecating his mental deafness, but by way 
of sustaining the conversation without vul- 
gar effort. 

She explained patiently, the situation hav- 
ing the tang of novelty. He laughed bois- 
terously as they spun along the bluff toward 
the gardens, the betto running by the pony’s 
head, well abreast, his dark-blue sleeves 
standing out like wings, and shrilly giving 
the warning “ Abunai ! ” as the trap turned 
the corners. Mrs. Habersham added, rumi- 
natingly, that the flying servant, with his 
loose cloak and skin-tight nether garment, 
made her think of Cimabue in the Spanish 
chapel. Regy turned and stared at her and 
cried : “ Oh, I say ! ” in that pregnant way 


AMMA-SAN 


173 


of his ; and she smiled sideways at him and 
said : “ Oh, but it is Florentine, you know, 
all but the hat ! ’ ’ He thought to himself : 
“ ’Gad ! another one of those deuced pretty, 
deuced clever American women — well, we’ll 
see. ’ ’ 

As the rest of the party wandered slowly 
toward their waiting phaetons and jinriki- 
shas Mr. Corkhill remarked : “ What con- 
fiding babes these new-comers are, to be 
sure ; fancy leaving a tea first like that ! We 
old residents leave in a body, we know too 
much for that.” 

But they belied his insinuations by declar- 
ing they found her charming ; it was such a 
load off their minds. 

“And her clothes!” almost screamed 
Mrs. Drypolcher, and she ended the mur- 
mur that followed by adding : “Did you 
catch on to the bonnet ? All the trimming 
in front, and we’ve just got ours veered 
round to the back — will we ever catch 
up? ” 

Mr. Corkhill no longer regretted having 
cut out of that rubber at the club. 

Mrs. Ames lingered while Kane got Mrs. 
Wemple-Jones’s victoria ready, and she said 
quietly to her circumspect hostess : “I think 


174 


AMMA-SAN 


we won’t find her simple, my dear. She’ll 
take — especially your men.” 

Captain Habersham, then in the harbor 
of Chemulpo, would have agreed with Mrs. 
Ames in her estimate of his young wife ; he 
would, in fact, just then have gone farther. 
She was not in the least simple, he could 
swear to that. He had left her six months 
back, sparing neither money nor pains to 
make her happy and comfortable in their 
tasteful home in Washington. He did not 
approve of the way naval officers’ wives 
raced all over the world after the ships. He 
came of old naval stock, and none of the 
women had ever done it and his wife should 
not — he thought that was understood. On 
top of all this, before he fairly got round to 
Shanghai, a letter from her had reached him 
in which she said, airily, that she had changed 
her mind; she had heard that European 
women in the East could with impunity play 
with dainty vice and refuse the burden of its 
responsibilities. It was an atmosphere she had 
been seeking all her life, so she had rented 
their house — at a good rate, too — and would 
settle down in Yokohama, and would be 
charmed to see him at his earliest convenience 
— just like Helen’s insolence, that last touch ! 


AMMA-SAN 


175 


His heart had bounded with joy when 
he found she was so near — but such a letter ! 
Not a word about him, except in an inscrut- 
able postscript: “Now, don’t be stupid, 
Will.” He defied any man to extract 
comfort out of that, and the whole thing 
rankled. 

Several bitter letters passed between them, 
and then that dangerous thing — silence. It 
all came of the utterly asinine way he had 
spoiled her for the first three years. After 
little Nelly’s death, somehow they had 
drifted into a way of having disagreeable 
scenes. She so cool, so incisive; he in- 
stantly off his balance and clumsily rough 
and personal. 

He could hear now that sweet voice of 
hers, saying: “Will, dear, let us keep to 
the generic, pray.” 

That always sent him to the club for 
the rest of the evening. He also remem- 
bered a Sunday afternoon — heaven knows 
how it began — he simply wanted to read 
the New York papers, and she — she ap- 
parently wanted amusement. The storm 
spread rapidly and ended in disaster. When 
he was white and openly profane, she had 
the — well, she came up to him and put her 


176 


AMMA-SAN 


arms about his neck, and asked : “ Captain, 
what is your honest objection to me?” and 
he had been brutal enough to take her arms 
down and answer : “ You’re too da — evilish 
corrosive ! ” He remembered how she 
stood perfectly still, breathing hard through 
those nervous nostrils of hers, watching him 
through half-closed lids, till he slammed out 
of the room. It was the most unmanly 
thing he had ever done, and he hated to 
think of it ; but she took up too much of 
his life, anyhow — confound her ! He had a 
deep-seated conviction that he did not al- 
ways understand her, and it did not serve to 
allay his irritation. 

The Captain walked moodily up and down 
on the quarter-deck of his little ship, and the 
officer of the deck unfortunately stepped up 
just then, saluted, and asked a question, and 
got a dressing down that sent the young 
blood to his face, and word went round the 
ship that the “old man” was on the ram- 
page, and it would be wise to keep clear of 
him. 

Then he went to his cabin and poured 
out three fingers of ‘ ‘ Navy Sherry ’ ’ and 
stood in front of the large water-color por- 
trait of his lovely wife, that hung over his 


AMMA-SAN 


177 


desk ; and he vowed to himself, as he tossed 
off the glass: “ I won’t write first, young 
woman, if I never hear again as long as I 
live! ” 

Ten minutes afterward the mail orderly 
brought him orders from the flag-ship to 
proceed to Yokohama, stopping at Nagasaki 
and Kobe on the way. 

In the meantime his wife had “ taken,” 
as was predicted, and in all its meanings. 
She was the sensation of that autumn. After 
the September rains, the bright days that 
followed were filled with a round of small 
gayeties. She was the topic at the United 
club, as well as at the teas, that followed 
now in quick succession. In the late after- 
noons her little trap turned into the Bund, 
down by the hotel, her graceful betto giving 
a flying leap up behind, his services as courier 
not being needed down the straight stretch 
to the English Hatoba. The crowd of 
loungers at the “American corner” of the 
Boat House veranda took its feet down from 
the scarred and paintless railing, and rose 
to a man, as she went flying by sitting very 
straight, with eyes ahead, and holding a 
tight rein on the hard-mouthed yellow brute 
she drove. Farther on, at the club, they 


i 7 8 


AMMA-SAN 


were like boys in their eagerness to get to 
the windows when the cry came from one of 
the youngsters : “ I say, here comes the 
Yankee navy ! ” 

“ ’Nai — o ! ” cried the betto, at the cor- 
ner, jumping down and leaping to the pony’s 
head, and she was gone in a flash. 

There were boat races, the ladies watch- 
ing from the Boat Club veranda; and Mrs. 
Habersham, in a ravishing gown, as the 
latest arrival, awarded the prizes ; and her 
manner, her smile, and her tiny speech were 
the talk of the hour. A dance generally 
followed in the evening at the club-house, 
and she had divided her waltzes into thirds 
— a thing that had not happened to her 
since she was in her foolish, happy teens. It 
was too absurd ! But the women liked her 
equally as well, and the whole American 
colony took an intense national pride in her 
success. And yet there had been several 
nights, between the dinners and the dances, 
when she had sat alone in her house, which 
was a little off the main Bluff road, turning 
to the right from the brow of Gamp Hill ; 
the servants — she was never quite sure how 
many she had — were in their doll-like quar- 
ters, removed from the bungalow, and there 


AMMA-SAN 


1 79 


were no two questions about it, she had 
been very miserable. One evening par- 
ticularly she had tried to read, to write 
home letters, she had gone to the piano — 
considerably the worse for dampness — and 
started a rattling galop with the loud pedal 
down hard, but the tempo got slower and 
slower, her foot fell away from the slippery 
pedal, and irresistibly her fingers drifted into 
the swing of the waltz movement, just a 
few chords — one — two — three, one — two — 
three ; then out of it emerged Loin du Bal, 
always inexpressibly sad, suggesting a far- 
away, unattainable peace, just out of reach, 
but there — somewhere. The last tantalizing 
strain, softer and softer at each repetition, 
a mere note here and there, and the hands 
rested. Out of the hush that followed came 
the faint, pathetic whistle of the blind 
amma’s pipe, feeling his slow evening 
rounds, tapping along the Bluff road with 
his friendly staff in hopes that some weary 
limbs might need his refreshing offices and 
so gain him rice for the morrow. Mrs. 
Habersham jumped to her feet, trembling 
and shaking. The sad sound always filled 
the evening air, but never before had its 
melancholy seemed so penetrating. No won- 


i8o 


AMMA-SAN 


der the other night at the public hall Remen- 
yi had tried again and again to continue, 
as suddenly, out of the tense silence, this 
irreconcilable sound came from the street 
and jarred all his cantabile ; no wonder he 
gave it up, shrugged his shoulders, holding 
his violin and bow in deprecating hands as 
he silently appealed to the audience, which 
broke into sympathetic applause and waited 
smilingly until the innocent intruder had 
slowly shuffled away into the distance. Some 
one had called it the “ still small voice ” of 
Japan. It drove Mrs. Habersham up and 
down her parlor relentlessly. Will’s strong' 
ly lined stern face seemed everywhere, with 
those deep-set gray eyes that looked at her 
with the curious helplessness of simple- 
natured, big-planned men. The same look 
she had seen in a horse’s eyes when a fly was 
teasing persistently. Why could they not 
be happy together ? The raw material was 
there for a happy marriage, she felt con- 
vinced of that. She was equally sure that 
the solution of the question rested with her. 
So many marriages in the Navy were un- 
usually happy. People differed, according 
to their cynicism or ingenuousness, as to the 
reason for it, but there was no disputing the 


AMMA-SAN 


181 


fact. She had heard the merry wife of a 
Lieutenant once say : “ Why, we are bound 
to be happy ! If you marry a nice sort of 
fellow, the time he is with you compensates 
for the time he is away ; if you marry a 
horrid wretch, his cruises compensate for 
his shore duty ! ’ ’ 

It would have been so simple if Will had 
been a wretch. The analytical cast of her 
mind made it unavoidable that she should 
see her husband’s character distinctly, and 
she was as sure of his principles as of to- 
morrow’s sunrise. Sure of his love, too — 
but that was only the literary quality of the 
picture. A happy marriage was not the 
crude gift from the gods some liked to think, 
but an earth-born art full of a technique of 
its own. There was the old responsibility 
of choice thrust upon her by her own nature. 
She got so weary of it she longed for the 
simplicity of the nature which is debarred 
from the endless necessity of moral choice 
by its very limitations. The tentacles of 
her consciousness seemed to reach out and 
touch all moral possibilities, and then came 
the inevitable, unescapable decision. The 
solution rested with her. 

Up and down the room she swept ; the 


182 


AMMA-SAN 


American colony would have been aghast 
at seeing her now, for once unconscious, en- 
tirely natural, with drawn white lips and 
staring eyes, hair pushed back nervously 
from the delicate face that looked almost 
coarse, full of a dull, restless rage. 

Again, nearer and nearer, came those 
dreary, persistent notes of the shampooer’s 
pipe. She heard him tapping his way past 
her gate in the endless night of blindness. 
With a quick gesture she turned abruptly 
and went straight to her davenport by the 
side window and dashed off a note at white 
heat to Mrs. Ames, begging her to come to 
her for a month — all in her usual blithe, 
droll tone, of course — and as she put it into 
her chit-book and snapped the elastic around 
it she felt her spirits rise. 

Mrs. Ames had accepted with her usual 
amiability, being alone in the world and liv- 
ing at the hotel ; and one morning, as they 
sat in the dining-room, the table littered 
with many fripperies, Mrs. Habersham was 
remodelling Mrs. Ames’s best bonnet, mov- 
ing the trimming dexterously round to the 
prevailing point of the compass. The latter 
sat in contented helplessness, leaning for- 
ward, watching the delicate process with an 


AMMA-SAN 


183 

almost girlish delight. Mrs. Habersham 
never ceased to wonder at the way these 
women in the East kept their youth, even if 
they did not their complexions. A basket 
had just come for Mrs. Habersham of La 
France roses from Mr. Henshaw’s hot-house. 
She signed her initials to the accompanying 
slip of paper and then appealed to Mrs. 
Ames about it, who laughed in her comfort- 
able, flexible way, and replied: ‘ 4 My dear 
child — of course I like your asking — but you 
need not trouble yourself in the least about 
that. We are the girls out here — you can 
see for yourself there are almost none — and 
we take their place in a sort of way. The 
men understand it and we understand it, and 
the rest lies with us. You know a man must 
have some one woman to let his egotism out 
to in a friendly way. They are pretty much 
alone out in the East ; the motherly-sisterly- 
cousinly element is lacking in their lives. 
That’s where we come in. For, after all, we 
women are more or less medicinal in our 
best effect — you’ll agree to that, I’m sure.” 

“ You mean they only take us when they 
have to? ” asked Mrs. Habersham, holding 
the bonnet at arm’s length to get the full 
effect. 


184 


AMMA-SAN 


“Not exactly that, no. Well, anyhow, 
it’s harmless or not, as you choose, and, of 
course * ’ 

“ Oh, of course,” was the reply. 

After a pause Mrs. Ames gave way to an 
ebullition of gratitude as she saw her bonnet 
grow in beauty under her very eye, and 
said: “I’ve been trying to analyze your 
popularity, you fascinating thing ! it comes 
so easily to you, somehow.” 

“ Easily ! If you only knew how I work 
for whatever little success I have.” 

“ Maybe a trifle with women, I admit, 
but with men ” Mrs. Habersham’s ut- 

most effrontery was not equal to making 
a denial. “You ask questions, for one 
thing.” 

“ Cribbed entire from a clever young 
physician, who, when I taxed him with 
malignant popularity, whispered that all 
he had ever done was to turn on autobio- 
graphical faucets and let them trickle — ■ 
purest plagiarism, you see.” 

Mrs. Ames shook her finger at her, 
laughed, and said : “ Maybe, but that’s not 
the half of it.” 

The pretty milliner looked up from her 
work, rose, placed the bonnet on the gray 


AMMA-SAN 


i8 5 

head opposite, adjusted the strings with 
a score of professional pats, stepped back 
with her hands on her hips and her head 
thrown first to one side and then to the 
other. Mrs. Ames watched her face, with 
that suffusion of deprecating interrogation 
the victim always wears on such occasions. 

“A little more jet,” was the verdict. 
Then she continued, still with a cold, criti- 
cal eye on her friend’s head : “ You won’t 

repeat it, will you ? The whole thing is 
this — women always think I’m a little better 
than I am, and men always think I’m a little 
— worse. Hush-sh-sh ! ” she added, a finger 
on her laughing lips, glancing about with 
pretended apprehension. Their eyes met 
and they laughed together. 

That afternoon Mrs. Habersham sat by 
the bright coal fire in her drawing-room 
waiting for the calls to begin, for it was 
her day at home. She wore a gray crgpe 
dress, slightly open at the throat and 
Regy’s roses pinned on the corsage to give 
the necessary color. She held a thin gray 
pamphlet in one hand, to which she referred 
every now and then, apparently repeating 
something to herself. Mrs. Ames had gone 
to Tokio for two days, on a visit to the 


i86 


AMMA-SAN 


American legation, and had rattled off in her 
independent ’rikisha just after tiffin. 

Yone, the deferential house-boy, presently 
approached his musing mistress, and bow- 
ing low, announced : ‘ ‘ Dannasan hachi jiu 
ichi ban,” the servants all knowing Euro- 
peans, with their impossible names, by the 
numbers of their houses. “ The Honorable 
Mr. Number Eighty-one ’ ’ was Regy, she 
knew, and she turned indolently to greet him. 

“Came early to avoid the crush,” he 
said, with his accustomed jerkiness. 

“How delightful! ” she exclaimed. A 
pause. 

“Aren’t you going to give a fellow a 
cup of tea? ” 

“Oh, yes, pardon me. Yone!” she 
called to the boy, who had such a talent 
for hovering unobtrusively. 

She let him serve the tea, reminding Regy 
of the cups she had ahead of her. Another 
pause. He pointed awkwardly to her roses, 
and asked : “ Those mine? ” 

“ No, mine,” she answered, conclusively 
but with a smile, as she continued looking 
into the fire. She had found the English 
did not mind silence, and it was restful after 
Washington. 


AMMA-SAN 187 

u Not a half bad day, is it?” ventured 
he. 

“ You go in so for brevity, Mr. Hen- 
shaw. Why not say, ‘ nice day ’ ? ” 

“Of course, if you’d rather ” 

1 ‘ No, really, I must refuse to assume the 
responsibility of counselling anything so 
radical.” 

“ Now you are chaffing me. I’d much 
rather you wouldn’t, Mrs. Habersham, I’m 
not at all up to it with you, you know,” 
and the big handsome boy moved about 
uneasily in his chair and looked so help- 
less and withal so delightfully fresh and 
groomed that she relented, and asked him 
all about the autumn races, the horses he 
had entered, the changes since the gay old 
days when gentlemen rode their own horses, 
a custom all gone out — worse luck! He 
grew animated and happy and finished his 
sentences in a gratifying way ; and she sat 
and enjoyed the deep, efficient voice and 
wondered what would happen if he knew 
how old and motherly she felt toward him. 
But he did not know, and she smiled and 
dimpled in his general direction now and 
then, and he stayed. 

During one of the pauses there came to 


i88 


AMMA-SAN 


them the dull report of a salute from the 
harbor. They both listened, and she asked : 

“ English mail? ” 

“ Oh, no ; wait a bit !” he cried, listen- 
ing. He counted thirteen guns. 

“ Some ship saluting the French flag- 
ship, which got in last night, you know.” 

“Yes, Mrs. Wemple-Jones has a lot of 
them to tiffin, and they’re coming here later. 
I was studying up a little speech of welcome 
when you came in,” she said, laughingly, 
pointing to the book in her hand, in which 
her forefinger still kept the place. 

“I hear wheels,” he said, rising; “I’m 
off. Half-after six, then for a spin round 
the racecourse ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, please. I must have my one 
glimpse of Fuji to recover my sense of pro- 
portion, after my day at home.” 

“ Chin-chin is in fine form to-day,” he 
said going into the hall. Coming back to 
the door, he added : “I say, Mrs. Haber- 
sham, you won’t give the German Club 
cotillon to any of those French monkeys? 
If you won’t give it to me, at least let it be 
an Anglo-Saxon.” 

“Good ! ” she cried, patronizingly, “St. 
George and the Dragon ! Now, please,” 


AMMA-SAN 


189 


pointing to the door in the prettiest way in 
the world, “before you spoil the effect.” 

She stood there enjoying her own acting, 
entirely independent of him, the hands 
raised in exaggerated laudation, then in 
charming command ; finally the palms tow- 
ard him, waving quickly. Poor Regy was 
dazed, he didn’t in the least know what it 
was all about, but all the same he thought 
it adorable. 

A jinrikisha dashed up, the coolie laid the 
shafts gently on the ground, putting one 
sandaled foot on the crosspiece while he 
untied the blue hachimaki round his brist- 
ling head and wiped his wet face. Mrs. 
Drypolcher stepped cautiously out, aided by 
Mr. Henshaw’s waiting hand ; she passed 
through the open door, and the afternoon 
had commenced. 

“I’ve come to stay, my dear ; you can’t 
budge me. I’ve heard enough to know 
it’s going to be one of your big days.” 

It was. The old mon-ban, at the gate, 
bobbed his head until he felt giddy, and 
his throat was parched from the frequent 
inhalings of his breath. They were all there ; 
the Americans almost in full force ; the 
English, who bowed, instinctively before 


190 


AMMA-SAN 


the element of sureness in Mrs. Habersham’s 
manner ; the German bachelors who were 
securing dances for the following week ; and 
the French navy, under the escort of Mrs. 
Wemple-Jones, whose painfully academic 
French made her the queen of the occa- 
sion. 

There were five men to one woman, and 
in the midst of the deep-toned chatter Mrs. 
Habersham’s mind jumped antithetically 
back to Washington. That made her think 
of Will, and she drew in her breath sharply, 
with a look in her eyes that gave the French 
executive, talking to her, a bad night. 

They were all gone, even Mrs. Drypol- 
cher, and she felt flushed and utterly weary. 
She was for once heartily glad to see Regy 
as he came striding in. “ Fuji, please, Mr. 
Henshaw, as fast as Chin-chin can go,” she 
ordered. She was all ready for the drive, 
a long black cloak thrown over her dress, 
and a close biretta of the same cloth, with a 
black aigrette perched up in front, on her 
small dark head. Just as Reggy was help- 
ing her into his trap, with boyish pride in 
his heart, Mr. Corkhill stepped inside the 
gate, and shouting across the lawn, “ Con- 
gratulations, Mrs. Habersham ! ” disappeared. 


AMMA-SAN 


191 

“ Now what under the sun can he mean 
by that ? ’ ’ she demanded. 

“Lord knows what Oddie ever means,” 
was the reply of his best friend. 

After they were seated and Regy took the 
reins, Mrs. Habersham saw, to her wild 
amazement, her husband approaching slowly 
along the path, followed by his Chinese boy 
with his valise and umbrella. It was an 
uncomfortable moment, awkward for most 
any woman but Mrs. Habersham. There 
should be no scene, if she knew herself, 
although her head was spinning and a sort 
of terror seized upon her. With a cry of: 
“ Why, Will Habersham, where on earth 
did you come from ? ” before anyone could 
help she had jumped to the ground, gone 
with quick steps to her silent husband, and 
compelled him, by sheer force of will, to 
stoop and brush his mustache across her 
cheek, and their eyes met like strangers’ for 
an instant. She introduced the two men, 
who shook hands warmly, as even men con- 
sent to do to help on the social system. She 
kept one trembling hand on her husband’s 
arm for Regy’s benefit, who motioned to 
his betto to let him have the restless pony’s 
head. 


192 


AMMA-SAN 


“By Jove, that’s what the guns were! ” 
he cried, as Chin-chin backed obstinate- 

] y- 

“ And that’s what Mr. Corkhill meant ! ” 
she added, smiling brilliantly. 

“ Delighted, Captain Habersham, I’m 
sure,” said the young Englishman, “hope 
your anchor went deep in the mud this 
time. I fancy our drive’s off for this after- 
noon, Mrs. Habersham. Beg pardon for 
not getting down, but these ponies are only 
half broken, you know. Sayonara ! ” He 
raised his hat and dashed off out the gate. 
He said to himself, as he gave Chin-chin a 
rather vicious flick with the whip: “She 
went white, I wonder why ; he looks a bit 
a brute ; she’s got an easy mouth too — I 
wonder why she went so white.” 

Fortunately Regy was not analytical to 
any dangerous degree. 

Mrs. Habersham’s smile died away, and 
her hand dropped from her husband’s arm, 
and they stood staring at each other coldly ; 
then he said, dryly, looking up at the house : 
“Your quarters, I understand.” 

“Yes, come in,” she answered, leading 
the way, pulling off her gloves with hands 
that trembled so that she could not unfasten 


AMMA-SAN 


193 

the buttons, but ripped them all off with a 
nervous wrench. 

‘ 1 I’ll call the boy, ’ ’ she said. They avoided 
each other’s eyes after that first stare, and he 
stood looking about, swinging his cane be- 
hind his back, like any stranger. Yone 
came, and she said, in her feeble imitation of 
the local patois : “ Yone, this is your danna- 
san, maybe like taberu, maybe like o-cha, 
you look, see.” She went to her room, leav- 
ing Yone almost prostrate with the etiquette 
the moment demanded of him. 

She closed her door, laid aside her wrap 
and jaunty hat, and stood by the window 
looking out with unseeing eyes. What a 
home-coming ! And in their naval life, full 
of unforeseen possibilities from hour to hour, 
there was no time for this waste. What an 
irreverent handling of a thing whose sacred- 
ness lies in a tender treatment ! How small 
the causes that led to such a terrible effect ! 
How helpless one really is amid the clash of 
ethical elements, simply answering to law, 
when once started by human folly! And 
above all it was vulgar ; and it was probably 
that thought more than any other that made 
her go quickly to the door, where she found to 
her dismay that after entering she had uncon- 


194 


AMMA-SAN 


sciously locked it. Pressing her hands to her 
burning cheeks, she went back to the draw- 
ing-room. 

It almost choked her to see him sitting 
there alone by the fire, the shadows bringing 
out the deep lines of his strongly, almost 
roughly, modelled face. As she stood an 
instant by the door, her animosity toward 
him faded slowly away. She entered and 
seated herself in a chair on the other side of 
the fire-place. He did not speak nor look 
up. She said, nervously: 

“Why didn’t you — I mean — when did 
you get in ? ” 

“That haw-haw youngster said you heard 
the guns.” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” she exclaimed, hastily. Where 
were her wits that she had been told so much 
about all her life? “I hope — you’ll stay, 
now you’ve got here at last.” She knew as 
she spoke that it was the most inane speech 
of her life. 

“ He said that too,” was the laconic re- 
ply. She felt a wild, inconsequent desire to 
laugh, which she sternly controlled. Final- 
ly he said, slowly : 

** Helen, this is all stuff, and you know it. 
I came here because I was not going to have 


AMMA-SAN 


195 


our relations made the butt of the squadron. 
I had to ask where you lived — actually didn’t 
know.” After a short silence he added, 
grimly: “ Between us we’ve come to a nice 
pass, haven’t we?” 

She could not stand it. She arose, say- 
ing : 

“I must dress for dinner. We dine at 
half-past seven. Did Yone mention it ? I am 
sorry, but there will be a few here to dinner, 
unless you wish me to write and put them off 
with a headache ; I can — shall I ? ” 

“ For God’s sake, no ; let them come, the 
more the merrier.” 

As she was leaving the room she heard the 
soft patter of many unshod feet coming along 
the hall, and, turning, saw Yone approaching 
with serious mien, followed by his wife and 
little son, and behind them the cook and his 
mother, the saucy betto and his pretty wife, 
the amah and her two children, and, finally, 
the gaunt mom-ban, followed by his totter- 
ing, shrivelled old wife, popularly knowu 
among the bachelors as “ Rameses-the-second- 
un wound.” 

They filed in one after another, dipping 
to Helen as they passed her, and went to 
Captain Habersham, and, breathing hard 


196 


AMMA-SAN 


and bowing agonizingly low, they paid 
their respects to the astonished honorable 
master. The children even squatted and 
bumped their little foreheads earnestly on 
the floor. The Captain jumped to his feet, 
crying : 

“Tell them to stop it, Helen! I can’t 
stand it. I feel like — Buddha. What’s the 
word for clear out this minute ? ’ ’ 

But they knew their etiquette down to the 
last sibilant hiss, and continued until Yone 
gravely led the gentle, white-footed pro- 
cession out again. 

It was too much for Helen, who rushed to 
her room and threw herself on the bed, 
smothering her shrieks of laughter in the 
pillows. Then she sat up and wished she 
had not laughed, and cried a little, as she 
began dressing for dinner. 

There was a certain black-and-white striped 
silk, with a quantity of steel trimming on it, 
which was Will’s special abomination ; she 
would wear that. She had reached that point 
when her wrath needed nursing. She had just 
put a high silver comb in her hair that gave a 
Spanish flavor to her mobile face, when she 
heard the door bang across the hall and her 
husband’s heavy step go back to the drawing- 


AMMA-SAN 


197 


room. She would not join him until the first 
guest arrived. 

It was only a quiet little dinner, four 
besides themselves — “pot -luck” she had 
called it in her verbal invitations — a hap- 
hazard provision against Mrs. Ames’s ab- 
sence. There were chatty Mr. Bent and his 
colorless daughter, and two bachelors — 
brothers “ in tea” — one light and the other 
dark, known behind their backs as “ Gold 
Lacquer” and “Black Lacquer.” Miss 
Bent was engaged to “Gold Lacquer.” 

Helen could not be too thankful that they 
all happened to be English, so her husband’s 
silence and uncompromising sternness pro- 
duced the best possible effect. 

It passed off fairly well, after all. Miss 
Bent always took her roll of music to a 
dinner, so afterward Helen kept her at the 
piano by a pressure most willingly yielded to. 
There is a certain unfailing ratio existing 
between a willingness to oblige and a knowl- 
edge of music, and Miss Bent was its leading 
local exponent. 

The brothers took rolls of music to dinners 
too. They dimly felt their short-comings, 
and humbly cultivated a talent for comic 
songs. Helen feverishly demanded one after 


198 


AMMA-SAN 


another, noticing with a pang that Will 
clung to these four people with an anxiety- 
only a little short of her own. 

When they finally tore themselves away 
from this intoxicating atmosphere, they called 
to one another, as the four jinrikishas spun 
along the dark bluff road in single file: 
“ Isn’t she charming ? ” 

“ So much taste ! ” 

“ So truly musical ! ” 

“ And he’s such good form,” added Miss 
Bent, as she and her father turned off by the 
English hospital. 

Helen closed the piano and arranged the 
scattered music. She heard Will go to the 
tiny smoking-room that she and Mrs. Ames 
had fitted up so cosily ; she heard a match 
strike, then the violent creaking of the Chi- 
nese steamer-chair as he laid his heavy length 
upon it, and presently she perceived the pe- 
culiar odor of a Manila cigar. Yone flut- 
tered about a few minutes and then disap- 
peared, and the house became perfectly still. 
Helen blew out the candles on the mantel- 
piece and in the sconce near the piano, and 
then went and stood by the dying fire. 

She put one slippered foot up on the low 
iron fender and stood looking down at the 


AMMA-SAN 


199 


silver buckle in the red light. It looked so 
pretty and bright as she turned her foot from 
side to side. Then she started, listened, and 
stood erect — there it was again ! the wailing 
pipe of the amma-san, coming nearer and 
nearer. She covered her ears with her hands 
nervously, until it had time to pass. Then 
she stood with her head up, her nostrils 
working like a running horse. She half- 
whispered to herself: “I’ve never done 
anything really big in my life. I’ll do it ! ” 
She walked rapidly into the darkened room 
where her husband lay. She went behind 
him and, stooping, put her hands on his 
head where the gray hair was getting so 
thin. Her arms stole gently down about his 
neck, and, before she thought, she cried, 
sharply : 

“ Don’t take them away ! ” 

The big frame on the chair moved uneas- 
ily. Then she said : 

“ Will, I beg your pardon for everything. 
For the letters I wrote and those I didn’t 
write, the wicked wasting of your love to 
gratify my insatiable vanity.” He tossed 
his cigar into the grate, put up his big, warm 
hand and took her tiny, cold one, and led 
her around to his side, pulled her down to 


200 


AMMA-SAN 


his breast, and held her there. All he said 
was : 

“You are a good little girl, dear, and 
you’ve got a heap more grit than I have.” 

After awhile he said : 

“ It’s this lonely life I lead, Helen. 
Every time I go to sea I get more and more 
exacting, irritable, and imperious. No one 
knows the utter loneliness of a commander’s 
life, with one hundred men within call of his 
voice, too. I warn you, I shall be a first- 
class crank by the time I’m an admiral — as 
most of them are. And it only took a thing 
about the size of your first letter to set me 
off.” 

She sat up with a happy little laugh, and 
said : 

“ Can’t you really guess why I followed 
you out here ? ’ ’ 

‘ * I know that letter by heart. ’ ’ 

“ Stupid ! Now, listen. I simply came 
because I wanted to be nearer you. I could 
hear oftener, maybe see you now and then. 
I could stand it before Nelly left us, but now 
— I cannot — I cannot ! You may never get 
me in exactly this mood again, so for pity’s 
sake listen now ! I love you, I love you — 
and I’m sure I don’t know why, you air- 


AMMA-SAN 


201 


earth - and - water -elementary -old - Genesis- 
first ! ” She was half- crying, half- laugh- 
ing. 

“ Why in the name of thunder didn’t you 
say so before?” he expostulated, in a tone 
that turned the scale and sent her off into 
peals of laughter. His face was completely 
changed, illumined by a rare smile, deeply 
rooted in some hidden sweetness of his 
nature. 

A hesitating rap on the front door startled 
them. He rose and opened it. She heard 
him say, gruffly : 

“ Well, Forster, what is it? ” 

“ Mr. Ainslie told me to give you this, 
sir.” 

She heard a rustle of paper and a smoth- 
ered exclamation. These words followed, in 
the uncontrolled audibility of a man’s whis- 
per : 

“ Take this out to the ship immediately 
and give it to Mr. Ainslie. I want the gig 
at the Grand Hotel landing at midnight.” 

He turned and found his wife beside him. 
She asked, in a choking voice — the light all 
gone out of her face : 

“When must you sail?” He saw she 
had understood it all, and answered : 


2 02 


AMMA-SAN 


“ At daybreak — for Hakodate. Why, 
Helen, Helen, where’s that grit we were 
talking about a few minutes ago? ” 

Out of the distance came the faint sigh 
of the amma-san’s pipe. 


\ 

) 




RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 




RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


“ ‘ With all my worldly goods I thee en- 
dow/ ” intoned Ensign Allsop, holding up 
his head haughtily enough before them all ; 
although his utmost attainment, by efforts 
little short of tragic, had been that financial 
heaven of his official grade: “A month’s 
pay in the bank, a month’s pay on the books, 
and a month’s pay in his pocket.” 

The little bride beside him, with as dep- 
recating an air as she could achieve, wore 
floating about her a priceless thing of cob- 
webs and frostwork, that all the five hundred 
friends in the church, to a woman, were 
humorously aware could by no means be 
duplicated by one whole year’s pay of the 
stiffnecked groom. 

But all that was quite beside the mark, 
among the friendly friends. To be sure it 
was far from being a great match for her, 
and undoubtedly her mother had dreamed a 
mother’s dream ; but in these decadent days 
one cannot escape from the discouraging 
205 


206 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


conviction that man, among other whilom 
predatory animals, is fast taking on the pro- 
tective moral coloration of the shy and re- 
mote ruminant. One may as well face, with 
some degree of temperate enthusiasm, the 
fact that Janet Hamerton might have done 
worse. 

She had shown an obstinate, many-ten- 
tacled tenacity — which Mrs. Hamerton found 
at first simply infuriating — in clinging for 
two years to the young naval officer. Two 
years of complete separation, well -baited 
by domestic and foreign temptations, all of 
which failed expensively of their purpose. 

The mother finally faced the inevitable, 
like the wise woman she was, and proceeded 
to cultivate an affection for Hugh Allsop her- 
self as the most comfortable solution of the 
whole matter. And so it came to pass the 
beautiful old benediction was spoken over 
them, kneeling side by side, like two children 
making ready for the misty land of dreams. 
Then they turned and walked slowly together 
down the aisle, carrying with them that real 
radiance of youth and happiness, at that 
pathetic point that turns the corner of life’s 
grave purport. The choir burst forth into a 
joyous shout, but the bride’s mother, follow- 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


207 


ing, looked ahead with eyes full to the brim, 
and deep down in her heart she was whis- 
pering : 

“ It’s good-by to my little child — I must 
try and remember — it’s really good-by, for- 
ever.” 


“ Where an angel guards the dwelling, 

There is joy and bliss divine ” — 

went on the glad chant, and it followed 
them out into the bright sunshine. 

It only remains to be said that the Ham- 
erton lawn was ruined by two inches of rice, 
or at least so vowed the old gardener; and 
by one of those unjust ethical caroms not 
uncommon, he took it out on his broken- 
spirited wife, for at least a fortnight after the 
wedding. 

And before that wild sowing was with pain 
and profanity fairly harvested, the wedded 
pair had had the excitement of their first 
quarrel and the unspeakable ecstasy of their 
first reconciliation. 

The question at issue was one of finance, 
as might have been expected, each of them 
having everything to learn in the way of 
mutual concession during these first parlous 
days of reconstruction. 


208 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


He had done the best he could and in- 
stalled her at once, with hardy thrift, in the 
one large back room that he could honestly 
pay the rent for, month by month. He was 
on shore duty on the Receiving Ship in the 
Boston Navy Yard, and so had his addition- 
al mess bill there to further deplete his purse. 

It was summer, and he plumed himself 
with no little pride upon his selection of a 
boarding-house in one of the elm-blest en- 
virons of the city. 

At least, she would have a cool bit of 
garden to sit and read and dream in during 
the long hot hours he had to leave her alone. 
He had done the very best he could. 

One morning, after his wheel had flashed 
out of sight down the vista of arching shade, 
the serpent, in the form of a very superior 
landlady — who, incidentally, had seen bet- 
ter days — crept into their Eden, with the 
suggestion that Mrs. Allsop, whose gold 
toilet-set she had not misprized, should take 
possession of the whole recently vacated 
lower floor, at summer prices. Janet made 
an immediate inspection, agreed, with the 
grateful effusion of inexperience, to the 
terms, and spent the livelong sweltering 
morning moving downstairs and arranging 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


209 


the few portable trifles that she had with her. 
The brief ecstasy of love’s springtime was in 
her blood, and she sang like a bird as she 
built her little nest to her liking. 

After lunch she took the electric-car to the 
nearest telegraph station, and sent a message 
to her mother at Newport, to forward at 
once four boxes of entirely unpractical Lares 
and Penates, selected and packed with an 
eye to just such a naval contingency. 

That afternoon, when she heard a certain 
click of the front gate, about which there 
was already a recognizable quality, she flew 
to the head of the stairs, and stood waiting, 
while, with head down, he sprang up, two 
steps at a time. 

“ 1 Will you walk into my parlor?’ ” she 
sang, pouncing upon him and dragging him 
through the adjoining door. For an instant 
he realized nothing save that she was there, 
and his, after much waiting. He held her 
off at arms length, laughing, in sheer boyish 
delight. The wonderful art of her costume 
— a thing of pinks and greens, like a wild 
rose — appealed to his senses, if quite beyond 
his intellectual appraisement. And then 
suddenly he looked about him, wondering, 
and became interrogative. 


210 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


She told him the whole story, leaning 
against him, laughing and triumphant. 

He was very young ; and he put her back 
from him, and went and closed the door 
leading into the hall, and then turned and 
faced her, and said, gently, but with a 
strange note of seriousness in his deep voice 
that dimmed the sweet light on her sensitive 
face : 

“I thought, Janet, you recognized that 
you were marrying a poor man — Heaven 
knows, we went over it often enough! ” 

“Why, yes, of course,” she said, with a 
pretty bewilderment he found dangerous to 
his purpose. 

“Well? ” was all he said, not finding it 
as easy as he had thought. 

“Well?” she said, with lips that had 
begun to tremble. 

“ Can’t you see, child, can’t you see how 
this humiliates me? The ugly sordidness of 
the thing obtruding upon us now ! Janet, 
I got the best room I could for you, and not 
go into debt. I know it’s a mere rat’s-hole 
after what you’re accustomed to — but I 
can’t help it — I ” 

“Hugh!” she cried, in sharp distress, 
“it’s not that — not at all. Why, I just love 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


2 I I 


that sweet room upstairs. Look at me, 
dear ; really and truly, it’s not that. The 
— view up there is perfectly lovely, much, 
much better than way down here. We could 
see the hills and the sunset, don’t you re- 
member ? And as to the carpet — just look 
at this awful green thing here ! And — and 
— everything,” she ended, vaguely, panting 
from excess of emphasis. “ But I did want 
a corner to hang the priest’s robe in, and 
have a divan and lots and lots of pillows ; 
and I have the colors all in my head, don’t 
you see ? ” 

“I'm sorry, of course,” he said, flushing 
painfully. 

Then suddenly she began to laugh, and 
danced up to him again. 

“ Stupid, stupid old Hugh ! Why, this is 
my affair ! ” 

“ That’s impossible, absolutely impossi- 
ble ! ” he cried, savagely, looking out of the 
window beyond her, with stern eyes, into 
which the trouble of life began to creep 
back, after the miracle of many days’ ab- 
sence. 

“ I thought it was understood between us 
— I took it for granted. You can, of course, 
do as you will with what is yours. You can 


212 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


spend the whole confounded thing on cara- 
mels, for all I care; Heaven knows, I’ll be 
able to get very little of that sort of thing 
for you for some time to come. But either 
you’ve got to be satisfied with my support, 


“Hugh! ” she whispered, in terror, fac- 
ing the end at once. 

“ or there’ll be rough weather ahead, 

that’s all,” he ended, doggedly. 

The consciousness of her wealth was still 
heavy upon him, his heart to the core was 
sore with it. His character, as yet, was 
made up of the intolerant right angles of 
youth, and he was in those days somewhat 
absorbed in his own courage and principle 
in the matter. 

“You won’t let me help — a little?” she 
pleaded, with wet eyes. 

“Never — once for all — never,” was the 
reply of this diverting young man. 

Then she experienced for the first time 
one of those strange, lightning-like darts of 
hate, in the midst of the quiet summer night 
of the most perfect love and she said, hotly : 

“ The reverse of that shield is selfishness, 
whether you see it or not. ’ ’ 

But the discipline of his life gave him 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 2 1 3 

better command of temper and tongue, and 
all he said, very gravely, was : 

“I’m very sorry about the priest’s robe 
and the divan, but board and lodging are 
my affair, and that’s all there is to it.” 

But it was far from being all, as so often 
happens after a masculine mandate has gone 
serenely forth. 

Her face began to quiver and break up 
into pitiful lines, she struggled an instant 
for control, then threw herself into a chair, 
her head down on the arm, and broke into 
passionate weeping. 

His heart went instantly out to her, he 
took a step toward her with extended arms ; 
but in a flash he realized that if he touched 
her in that mood he might lose his moral 
grip, and the question be reopened. He 
was very solicitous at that time about his 
moral grip. 

He straightened himself up, and went 
down into the garden with an unlighted 
cigar tight between his teeth. 

A few moments later when Janet looked 
out of her window and discovered the great 
ease of his attitude beneath a tree, it seemed 
the supremest offence of all that she had 
endured. 


214 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


The cloud lowered over them all through 
the long evening which they spent together 
in agonized silence in the new quarters, as 
he left the mere vulgar detail of the situation 
to her, after the lordly way of his sex. 

They parted with constraint the next 
morning, a palpably wretched pair. He 
had to stand watch that night and the next 
on the ship, and they should not again see 
each other till after quarters on the second 
day. To part like this at such a time seemed 
little short of fatal. 

“ Shall I see you at the hop to-morrow 
afternoon ? ” he asked coolly, just before he 
left. 

She had meant to go, of course, it broke 
into that dreadful age of separation ; but she 
responded to the aloofness of his tone rather 
than to the words: 

“No, I think not. It appears to me that 
my hands will be quite full here.” 

“As you like. I’m sorry,” very civilly 
from him. 

If one of them had only laughed, as they 
learned to do so consummately later, like 
hardened soldiers under a rain of bullets. 

He went away and it seemed to the girl- 
wife that her happiness had been stricken in 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


215 


its youth and lay dead and stark at her feet. 
Happily there was much to be done. Moral- 
ly the landlady had to be faced ; physically 
she supposed the move must once more be 
made to the room upstairs. It was no light 
burden to be placed on untried shoulders. 

Mrs. Pringle, the landlady, proved diffi- 
cult at the very first sentence ; in fact, she 
was more than difficult, and the young wife 
quailed before her sharp words; and sud- 
denly found that there could be a hideous 
personal application of abstract legal terms — 
Mrs. Pringle recognizing an easy victim. 
Moreover, a mysterious person, it appeared, 
even in this short interval, had hungrily 
taken possession of the room with the desir- 
able carpet and sunset views. 

It seemed to Janet that her entire life, 
from its inception to its entombment, was 
hopelessly engulfed in utter black despair. 

Nothing short of personal crippling vio- 
lence would have driven her that day to ask 
aid of Hugh. 

With white face and trembling hands she 
put on her hat and gloves, and again went 
to the telegraph office and poured out her 
anguish in a long incoherent message to her 
mother, beginning with a countermand for 


2l6 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


the four boxes, and ending with an entreaty 
for Mrs. Hamerton to come at once. The 
telegram cost six dollars and seventy-five 
cents, and the imperturbable way in which 
she paid for it left the operator staring. 

Then Janet went back to her rooms, and 
wept absorbedly until the answer came. 

It was very short, but epitomized a life’s 
experience : 

‘‘Pay month’s advance yourself, and 
leave the house. Yield question absolutely 
to Hugh — solution later. Think best not 
to go to you now. Letter to-day explains. 
God bless you. Mother.” 

If it was hard for the daughter to receive 
this, it had been ten-fold harder for the 
mother to force herself to send it. Her 
hands fluttered out yearningly, as when 
hovering over those other first steps taken 
alone by her child long years ago. Now, as 
then, she must hold herself aloof, and watch 
and pray, and laugh a little through her tears. 

Late that night the promised letter came 
from Newport by special delivery ; and 
Janet had time to read and digest and sleep 
and act upon it before Hugh’s return. Two 
things in Mrs. Hamerton’s letter clung longest 
to her daughter through the coming years. 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


217 


“The young wife who has only to com- 
plain of honest pride in her husband is to 
be heartily congratulated,” and farther on : 

“Do you remember when my little girl 
and I were having one of our famous battles 
of will, lasting sometimes for hours, how one 
day she finally flew into my arms, all tears 
and smiles, and whispered a grand discovery 
of her own : 

“ ‘ It’s lot more fun to be good, Mamma ! ’ 
You are right, in this matter, and Hugh is 
right ; by and by it will adjust itself ; but 
you can’t force a moral development any 
more than a vegetable. Wait — and between 
the sun and the rain all will be well.” 

Janet paid the month’s advance to the 
astonished Mrs. Pringle, who instantly re- 
gretted an evident underestimate of the gold 
and enamel toilet-set ; and it was years be- 
fore Hugh learned of this demoralizing trans- 
action. Then she went forth and found an- 
other boarding-house, three squares away, 
where, well within the Ensign’s Spartan re- 
quirements, she was able, to her great amaze- 
ment, to engage a tiny suite of rooms 
perched delightfully among tree-tops. 

The achromatic Japanese matting on the 
floor had no small part in her decision, as it 


2 I 8 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


left her perfectly free as to color combina- 
tions, with certain ecclesiastical draperies, 
again alive and hopeful in her imagination. 

She returned to Mrs. Pringle’s and donned 
a Paris gown of priceless simplicity, and thus 
attired, the young husband found her await- 
ing his heavy-hearted return. 

Without further greeting than a soft laugh 
of pleasure she flew to his arms and again 
tested and endorsed the philosophy of her 
babyhood : there was no doubt whatever it 
would always be more fun to be good. 

As he held her closely, a strong doubt of 
himself began to come into his mind. It 
grew later into a conviction, and became 
eventually the “solution,” of which Mrs. 
Hamerton was so confident. 

“ I shall never understand my luck, dear,” 
he whispered, repentantly. 

“To place such emphasis on yours, de- 
tracts, methinks, from mine, sir,” she said, 
saucily, and pushing him away, she held him 
relentlessly until again she told her story — 
less those instinctive omissions always expe- 
dient in a woman who would succeed. 

“Yes, Mr. Allsop, I faced and floored 
that awful landlady ” 

“ Yes, Mrs. Allsop, but how ? ” 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 219 

“ Mamma says our processes are our own ; 
the world is only entitled to results.” 

“ The world, forsooth ! ” 

“My world,” murmured this perfidious 
young woman, using her eyes to tide over 
a moment fraught with danger. There fol- 
lowed a blissful interval in which logic had 
no part. A little later : 

{ ‘ Then I went to every blessed one of the 
list of boarding-houses he gave me, and ” 

“ He ? ” fiercely. 

“ Why, the nearest grocer, of course,” 
scornfully. 

“Ye gods! have I married a genius?” 
fearsomely. 

“ Only mamma’s daughter,” demurely. 

And so it was like the two veriest romp- 
ing, happy children that they made the first 
of many moves in the nomadic life ahead of 
them. 

They were packed and ready for the ante- 
prandial transit. They had sought diligent- 
ly and failed to discover Mrs. Pringle, who 
had become strangely evanescent ever since 
her bewildering windfall. 

“ Sit here in the shade, Janet, till I call 
in that old rattle-trap of an express wagon 
on the square,” commanded he. 


220 


RECONSTRUCTION DAYS 


There was a twinkle in her soft, brown 
eyes when she replied : 

“ Hugh, wait a second. I had an idea 
to-day and I’ve already arranged for the 
transfer. Come, I’ll show you.” 

He followed her, wondering, across the 
lawn to the box -hedge, where she pointed in 
silent triumph to her idea. It was an enor- 
mous green wheelbarrow that, like its owner, 
had seen greener days. 

The Ensign looked at it, and then sharply 
at her dancing eyes, then back again askance 
at the barrow, finally : 

“ Well, I’ll be — smothered ! ” 

“ If we must economize, Hugh,” she 
murmured, meekly. 

Then he shouted. 

Seizing both her hands in warm admira- 
tion he exclaimed: 

“ A knock-out — a fair knock-out ! ” 

And she made him do it, too, one trunk 
at a time, and walked contentedly beside 
him in her exquisite Parisian costume, the 
daintiest of parasols held over her pretty 
head, and above, towering beside her, a re- 
pentant, but none the less hilarious, Ensign 
of the United States Navy. 


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